The Werewolf Who Stole Christmas
by Lady Bracknell
Summary: Remus manages to rob Tonks of her Christmas spirit, but helping her to get it back proves the catalyst for something a tad more lasting than a kiss under the mistletoe. RemusTonks romance through OOTP and HBP. Started before DH.
1. Stealing Christmas

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognise remains the property of the most marvellous JK Rowling. I'm just playing. **

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Tonks' eyes snapped open as soon as her alarm went off. Christmas morning was the one morning she didn't mind being forcibly awoken from her slumber. She leapt out of bed, her breath only slightly caught by surprise as the sub-zero temperature of her Grimmauld Place room hit her. With chattering teeth she pulled on jeans, a bright blue T shirt with silver snow flakes on it, and a huge green cardigan that clashed horribly with both. Feeling slightly less chilled as she hugged the cardigan to her, she Summoned a pair of earrings that had tiny silver robins dangling from them from the dresser and slipped them into her ears. 

She took a moment to think about what to do with her hair, settling eventually on a nice festive red for her bob, and after giving herself an appreciative nod in the mirror, she flung the door of her room open and bound down the stairs to see who else was up.

Tonks burst into the kitchen to find Remus already sitting at the heavy dark table, and Molly busy at the stove. The air was warm and smelled of delicious spices with a hint of chocolate, presumably from whatever Molly was cooking in the oven. "Good morning," she said. "Merry Christmas!"  
"Merry Christmas, dear," Molly called over her shoulder.  
"I love Christmas," Tonks said, plonking herself down in a chair next to Remus.  
"Really?" he said, his eyes skirting over her T shirt and earrings. "I hadn't noticed."

She shot him a sarcastic smile, but she could never be annoyed with him for very long. It was one of the things she found most irritating about him. One minute he'd say something dry and sarcastic and make her stomach flicker with annoyance, and the next he'd say something warm and friendly and make her like him again.

And she did like him. More than she should. Even though she tried not to.

"Going to see you parents later?" Molly asked, and Tonks couldn't help noticing that there was something oddly strained about Molly's voice. Probably just worried about Arthur, Tonks thought, as she tried not to stare at Remus.  
"Yes," Tonks sighed. "I'd rather be here with you lot, but, you know Christmas is a time for fam - "

She had been about to say that Christmas was a time for family, but Remus grabbed her arm and shook his head. Tonks remembered Percy and screwed her eyes shut in exasperation with herself for putting her foot in it.

"That smells wonderful, Molly," he said, his eyes still locked with Tonks'. She mouthed the word 'sorry' at him, and he let go of her arm, smiling kindly and making her stomach flicker with something that definitely wasn't annoyance. "What is it?"  
"Arthur's mother's recipe for Christmas cake," she said, and if she was aware of Tonks' near blunder, it didn't show in her voice. "Bit last minute, but I thought he might appreciate it being stuck on the ward. He always says he likes mine better, but I know he's lying."  
"Whatever did Arthur do to deserve you?" Remus said, and Molly turned and grinned at him, her eyes crinkling at the edges.

Soon enough the kitchen was full to bursting with the house's holiday occupants, the sound of excitable chatter about presents and the odd blast of a Christmas Carol from Sirius joining the spices in the air. Molly decided that they should convene in the drawing room around the Christmas tree to exchange presents before lunch. Harry, Ron, Hermione, the twins and Ginny had already opened theirs, but the grown-ups were scarcely less excited, owing to a breakfast batch of egg nog which Tonks suspected had contained a little more alcohol than Molly intended. Tonks suspected Sirius of adding a little extra when she wasn't looking, but the pink-tinge to Molly's cheeks suggested she either hadn't noticed or didn't mind.

Tonks located her pile of multicoloured gifts, and as Molly, Sirius, Remus and Bill exchanged thanks in a flurry of wrapping paper, she opened hers, gasping in delight at each and every one. But, much as she liked the things other people had got her, there was one gift she was looking forward to more than the others. She'd been wondering for a while what Remus would buy her, promising herself that she wouldn't read too much into it, but knowing that she probably would. And he always had seemed like the type of man who would buy exceptionally thoughtful presents, and the thought of him being thoughtful about her...

She sighed, she hoped, but doubted, quietly to herself, and returned to the pile of gifts at her feet, looking for the elusive tag with the name Remus on it.

She looked through everything twice before she realised it wasn't there.

Remus hadn't bought her anything.

Her heart sank. She tried not to show how disappointed she was, and whole-heartedly thanked Molly for the nutty-toffee she'd made her, and Sirius for the bright orange Weird Sisters T shirt, and the children for the Weird Sister's lead singer's biography that they'd all chipped in for, because really, they were all very thoughtful gifts, and she was grateful for the effort they'd gone to, but...

As Remus opened the giant slab of Honeyduke's chocolate she'd bought him (it was so big it came with a mallet to crack it), he looked at her across the room, and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something. Then he changed his mind, and settled for a simple "Thanks."  
"Don't mention it," Tonks muttered, thinking that he probably felt guilty for having forgotten to buy her anything.

There was an oddly hollow sensation in her chest and she couldn't stand to be there any more, surrounded by seasonal chipperness and all that wrapping paper that now seemed nothing but a reminder that the one person she'd wanted to buy her a gift hadn't. All of a sudden she wasn't feeling remotely festive. She collected all her gifts together, and stood up. "I'm off," she said, as brightly as she could muster. "Tell Arthur I hope he gets well soon, Molly? See you all later," she said, and left.

Christmas afternoon with Tonks' parents was a very trying experience. To try and avoid the usual arguments about her appearance, Tonks reverted to long, dark brown hair and dark, chocolaty, eyes before she Flooed over to them, but it hardly helped. Half-way through her mother's usual festive rant about how she'd never get a boyfriend in clothes like that, Tonks started to quite wistfully think she'd rather be back in Grimmauld Place with Kreacher.

As long as Remus wasn't there, she thought bitterly. She didn't want to see him at all. She couldn't believe he hadn't bought her anything. Nothing. Not even a sugar mouse. She'd thought they'd been getting on better recently - more than better, in fact. On a couple of occasions, she'd even thought he'd flirted with her over post-mission cocoa in the kitchen... They'd sat too close, and developed private jokes, and she'd thought...

But she must have imagined it, because she wanted him to flirt with her. She wanted the proximity of his knees to hers to mean something, and clearly, it didn't.

She shouldn't have bought him anything - it was tantamount to admitting that she liked him and obviously he didn't feel the same. She sighed, and pretended to be interested in what her mother was saying about Mrs Barnstaple next door's daughter, who was two years younger than Tonks and had already secured herself a husband. She helped herself to another mug of mulled wine, drinking it so fast that she burnt her tongue.

In the end she stayed rather later at her parents' than she intended. Every time she thought of going back to Grimmauld she thought of Remus and made an excuse to stay a little longer - claiming to be interested in watching a Muggle film with her dad about some spy from the 60s, and then even offering to wash up.

It had been a foolish thing to expect something from him, she thought. After all, they'd only known each other a few months, and he'd made it plain on a number of occasions that he found her to be highly irritating. As she drank another mug of mulled wine in front of her parents' fire, she wondered if she might just be able to avoid him for a while. She'd have a word with Moody about not pairing them up for missions, give him some excuse about wanting to learn from other members of the Order and their various specialities, and it wasn't as if she needed to spend protracted periods at Grimmauld. Of course she'd wanted to, but...

Tonks realised that her mother was talking. She looked up from the fire and smiled and nodded, not really knowing what she was agreeing to. Her mother beamed. That wasn't good. She glanced at the clock, and seeing that it was nearly eleven, decided that she'd probably better go. The mulled wine had left her with a warm, drowsy drunken feeling, and she reasoned that if she didn't go soon she'd probably fall asleep in the chair, and she couldn't entirely trust her mother not to Transfigure her clothes into something i _more appropriate /i _ when she was asleep. One year she'd woken up from a post-turkey snooze in some kind of twin set and a skirt that she'd sworn was made from curtains.

Her mother tried to nag her into staying the night, but Tonks decided that she'd rather face Remus than her mother in the morning. She wished her parents merry Christmas, kissed them goodbye, and stepped into the fire.

She emerged into the kitchen, brushing her jeans where she'd gotten a little soot on them, and peered out into the gloom. Although the fire had been lit, there was no-one around, and she trudged up the stairs and down the corridor - taking great pains not to disturb the snoring portrait of Mrs Black - half-relieved that she wouldn't have to make small talk with anyone and half disappointed that there was no-one to talk to and take her mind off things. As she climbed the stairs up to the first floor, she noticed that the door to the library was ajar, and flames sent a flickering glow into the hall way. "Sirius?" she said, pushing the door open, and stepping inside. With any luck he'd have a bottle of Firewhiskey and she could properly drown her sorrows.

"Afraid not," Remus said, from an armchair by the fire. Tonks winced. She should have known it'd be him.

There he was, book in lap, his eyes still roving the page his fingers were itching to turn. "Did you have a nice day?" he said.  
"Not really," she said, pushing her hair out of her face. "But duty called. How's Arthur?"  
"Experimenting with Muggle remedies," Remus said, the faintest trace of amusement on his face. "I wouldn't mention it to Molly."

He was being so normal that she just couldn't stand it, and before she'd really had time to think about it or fully process what she was doing, she was striding across the room and facing him in front of the fire. "What's wrong with you?" she said. She could hardly believe she'd said it, and made a mental note to stop after two mugs of her mother's mulled wine in the future.

Startled by her abrupt tone, Remus looked up. "A great many things, I daresay," he returned, blinking in a slightly surprised fashion. "Could you be more specific?"  
"I know you don't like me," she said, eying him accusingly, her hand on her hip. "But you could have bought me something. A sugar mouse, or something."  
"Oh," Remus said, and, with a brief smile, he closed the book he was reading without marking the page, and stood up.

He strode to where she was standing, delved into the pocket of his tweed jacket, and pulled out a small red velvet box, tied shut with a green bow, which had imitation holly leaves and berries nestling in the knot. "Sorry. I didn't want to give it to you in front of the others," he said softly.

His grey, smiling, eyes fixed on hers, and for a minute she was too shocked to take the box from him.

He had bought her something, then.

Something in what appeared to be a jewellery box.

In the firelight his eyes twinkled, and the orange light of the fire highlighted the youthfulness of his expression rather than the lines she knew were on his face.

"Oh," she said softly, and she took her hand off her hip, reaching to take the box from his proffered hand. She'd never had anything so exquisitely wrapped before, and it took her a moment to figure out how to get into it. She slid the ribbon off, and took in the velvet box beneath her fingers, her heart pounding.

She took the lid off to find herself looking at a necklace - a thin, silvery chain that sparkled in the firelight, threaded through a pendant, tear shaped and flat-backed with a large blue-green stone in the centre of a fine silver setting. She pulled it out of the tissue paper and held it up to the light of the fire. She nestled the box on the thick wooden mantelpiece so she could give his gift her full attention.

"Do you like it?" he said, still regarding her intently from underneath his sandy hair. She dropped the pendant into her hand, mesmerized by the stone, the different facets of colour within, and ran her finger over it, amazed to see it turn pink as she touched it.  
"Wh - " she started, meeting his eyes.  
"It's bewitched," he said. "It'll change stone according to your whim."  
"It's beautiful," she said, and her voice was more hushed and awed than she thought she'd ever heard it. "No-one's ever bought me something like this before."

It was true enough. People always bought her Quidditch shirts or books on broomsticks or gobstones. No-one had ever bought her anything, well, beautiful before, and certainly nothing elegant and lady-like. They probably thought she wouldn't like it, or that she'd break it. But she loved it, and she loved that he had bought it for her - as if he really did think of her as a woman, and not stupid old klutzy tom boy Tonks.

"I thought how terribly frustrating it must be for someone who can change their appearance at will to have to make do with jewellery that can't," he said. "You can make this into any stone you like just by thinking it - for protection against certain poisons and curses, of course, or you could just make it match you hair, which, if I may say so, is looking particularly pretty this evening. Do you want me to fasten it for you?"

She gazed at him, wondering if he'd really just called her real hair pretty, if he'd really bought her jewellery, if he'd charmed it himself, and if she'd be able to stand having his fingers so close to her neck without fainting. A lot of ifs, she thought. She met his eye, and, seeing his eyebrows raised in tentative question, realised he was still waiting for an answer. She nodded.

He took the chain out of her hand and undid the clasp with his long, elegant fingers. She turned round, lifting her hair off her neck and trying not to shiver as he came close to brushing her ears with his arms as he snaked them though hers to drape the chain around her neck. She felt the cool weight of the pendant on her throat, and his breath on the back of her neck as he did up the clasp. She tried to keep breathing as she felt his fingers brush the back of her neck as he released it.

"There," he said, and she let her hair down and turned back to face him, surprised, but not displeased, that he hadn't taken a step back.  
"How does it look?" she said, fingering it lightly as it sat on her chest, hoping he couldn't hear the thundering of her heart beneath it.  
"Lovely," he said. "Why don't you try and change it into something? Just think of a stone, picture it in your mind, and it should do the rest."

Tonks nodded, and closed her eyes in concentration. "Hematite," he said, saving her the trouble of asking if it had worked. She opened her eyes to find he was smiling, and the look in his eyes stole what little breath she had left that his gift hadn't.  
"Thank you," she said. "It's lovely."  
"It's a pleasure," he said.

Something caught Tonks' eye above, and she glanced up and realised where they were standing. "Oh look," she said, quietly. "Mistletoe."

He glanced up too, but as quickly as his eyes had departed hers, they were back again. "Indeed," he said, his lips twitching at the corners in the beginning of a smile. "Harry reliably informs me it might be infested with Nargles."  
"Nargles?" Tonks said. "What on earth are Nargles?"  
"I haven't the faintest idea," he said, chuckling softly, his voice little more than a whisper.

They stood looking at each other for what seemed like forever in the firelight, but for once, Tonks didn't mind the silence. She enjoyed the soft crackling of the fire, the way it cast soft, dancing shadows on his face, and most of all, the way he was looking at her - as if he was captivated, and never wanted to do anything but look at her.

He bent his head to hers so slowly that at first she thought she'd imagined him moving altogether, and when she realised that he was going to kiss her, her breath caught in her chest. She was sure he was going to give her a peck on the cheek, but at the last second he seemed to change his mind and kissed her on the lips instead. His kiss was soft, and sweet and made her tingle all over. He pulled away far too soon, leaving the briefest impression of his lips on hers.

"Merry Christmas, Tonks," he said, smiling at her. Then he turned and walked away, his hands thrust into his pockets, humming a Christmas Carol to himself.

Tonks stared, open-mouthed, at the doorway for a very long time, absentmindedly fingering the pendant on her chest. "I love Christmas," she sighed.

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**A/N: Thanks for reading :D. Reviewers get a kiss under the mistletoe from their favourite fictional werewolf. **


	2. New Year's Revolution

New Year's Eve had never been one of Tonks' favourite celebrations – normally it meant being unable to turn down an invite to some frightfully boring party with her parents and being introduced to the sons of friends her mother thought might make a suitable boyfriend. Last year's do had been a particularly galling one, full of old, distant relatives of her father's, including a plumber called Derek who'd had too much to drink and repeatedly pinched her bottom, getting a string of not-especially lady-like expletives and a turnip for a nose in return.

But this year was different. She'd been able to turn down her mother's invite because she had another much more pleasing prospect on the cards. Sirius had been persuaded – although to be honest, it hadn't been a tricky task – to throw a party, and everyone had risen to the occasion, Molly agreeing to see to the food, the twins supplying some décor that hopefully wouldn't injure anyone, and Sirius raiding his mother's wine cellar to make sure the party went with a swing.

Which was all very nice, but hardly the cause for the flutter in her chest when she wondered what she should wear. Tonks hadn't seen much of Remus since Christmas Day – either he had been on duty for the Order or she had, and so they'd passed in the corridors of Grimmauld and sat at the same heaving dining table on a couple of occasions, but that had been it. They hadn't had a chance to be alone….

She fingered the pendant nestling on the neck of her jumper. She hadn't been able to bear to take it off, although she had tried changing it into all the different stones she could think of. It really was a spectacularly thoughtful and generous gift, especially given that she knew he wasn't exactly rolling in galleons.

Her heart gave a, by now rather familiar, flutter.

It did the same thing whenever someone mentioned him, or whenever she thought of him, which she had quite a lot recently, even though she'd tried desperately not to over-react, tried to convince herself that it was, of course, just a kiss.

Tried, and failed, of course. Quite miserably.

The kiss he had given her under the mistletoe had lingered far longer than his lips had on hers – in fact, she'd thought of very little else all week. She blamed a lack of proper distractions. She'd had no real work to do for either the Ministry or the Order, and her offers to help Molly with the party food had been met with very polite but firm refusal. It was think about Remus kissing her or go back to her flat and clean the oven, and tempting as de-greasing spells had been, thinking about kissing Remus had won out in the end.

Questions had been swimming through her mind all week, in an endless swirl like paint through water. They'd started out together, isolated, and then had dispersed into every thought she had. Was it just a friendly kiss? A seasonal gesture?

Until Christmas Day, she'd never had any real indication that he liked her in that way – but then, she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to be looking for. All the other men she'd been out with had been a far brasher, more direct sort – the kind to grab a girl and snog her senseless and then ask questions, and she wasn't entirely sure that that was what Remus would do even if he did like her.

But at midnight, he'd have to kiss someone, and he was a far more appealing prospect than Derek the plumber and his roaming hands.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Nothing she did seemed right today. Every colour she tried to wear seemed to make her look pasty or sallow or something else that she didn't particularly want to look on today of all days. She tried deep purple, waist-length hair, which was normally one of her favourites. She frowned at herself in the mirror, and then tried green. Nope, she didn't like that either.

Eventually she settled on pink hair to match the socks she was wearing. It seemed as good a reason as anything else. She considered changing into something more obviously party-ish, but she didn't want to seem as if she was making too much effort. She pulled on the pointy-toed and completely impractical boots she'd brought herself before Christmas, changed her pendant to Tiger's Eye, and straightened her black V neck jumper, before taking a deep breath and going downstairs.

Everyone was already assembled in the basement, where the table was heaving with sandwiches with every filling, crisps, cakes and quiches, and streamers hung from the ceiling, moving slightly in the draught and emitting the odd red spark. Sirius had Conjured a countdown to midnight on one wall, and golden dancing seconds ticked away one by one as she watched. Someone had found an old radio in one of the bedrooms, and with a little magical help it had been persuaded to pump out a radio station that seemed very keen on The Weird Sisters, and Tonks, at least, was not complaining.

Molly was fussing over the sandwiches, wondering if she should make some more, even though she'd clearly made enough to feed a moderately-sized army, and the twins were eying their decorations nervously. Harry and Ron were sitting in one corner with a plate of sausage rolls between them, and Ginny was tormenting Crookshanks with one of the streamers.

She scanned the room for Remus and met his eyes immediately. He smiled at her, but before she had a chance to go over and talk to him, Hermione cornered her with a question about whether or not she regretted taking NEWT-level Potions. Apparently Hermione was caught in indecision about whether she should take something that might be useful, or something she'd enjoy and was good at. Tonks attempted to give Hermione her full attention, but her eyes kept darting in Remus' direction. He was with Sirius, who was waving his arms, his face dancing in delighted animation at whatever tale he was telling, while Remus regarded him with an expression that was half-amusement and half-disgust, as if he was trying his best not to laugh at a dirty joke.

Tonks told Hermione she'd probably be better off talking to Professor McGonagall about it, and Hermione seemed pleased by the suggestion and bounced away to swipe the last sausage roll. Tonks took a deep breath, and went over to join Sirius and Remus.

"Tonks!" Sirius said, clapping her on the back so hard she stumbled forward.

"Wotcher," she said as she regained her balance, trying not to blush.

She was determined to at least try and do a passable impression of being a normal human being this evening. "Would you like a drink?" Remus said, and she nodded.

"Wine, please," she said, and he smiled and turned towards the table.

"Sirius was just telling me a rather appalling story about some poor girl named Maria," he shot over his shoulder as he filled a glass. Tonks sniggered at the horrified look on Sirius's face. Evidently it was not a story he'd intended to share.

Remus turned back towards them, offering her the large, half-full wine glass. "Thanks," she said as she took it from him. "Don't let me interrupt."

"Another time, perhaps," Sirius said, shooting his friend a reproachful look.

"Really, Sirius," Tonks said. "I'm not that easily shocked."

"I am," Remus said. "I was rather glad he'd stopped."

She chuckled, took a sip of her wine and then coughed. It was a bit like drinking acid and made her top lip numb instantly. It left a pungent aftertaste that reminded her of celery. "That's very…" she searched for the right word, and as the seconds passed and Remus and Sirius stared at her expectantly, it occurred to her that there might not be a word for what the wine was. "Different," she said eventually.

"It gets better after the first glass," Sirius assured her. "I think, possibly, because the first one kills the taste buds."

They chatted for a few minutes about Mrs Black's peculiar taste for Eastern European goblin wine until Remus offered to trade her glass for a Butterbeer, and she gratefully accepted. "You know what this party needs?" Sirius said. Remus held up his hand to halt Sirius mid-proposal.

"Whatever you're about to suggest," he said, "please don't."

"Why not? I could have a brilliant idea."

"I've been to your parties before," Remus said. "Any sentence you start with 'you know what this party needs?' ends in hospitalisation, nudity, humiliation or a fist-fight. Often, all four."

"I was just going to suggest a spot of dancing," Sirius said, his face studiedly innocent.

"So just the humiliation and hospitalisation, then."

Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus, and then held his hand out to her. "Tonks?"

"You know I don't dance. Not unless I'm really drunk."

"Moony?"

"I think I'll sit this one out."

"Suit yourselves."

Sirius offered them both a snort of derision, muttering something about wallflowers and party-poopers, and then crossed the floor to drag Molly into an open space and spin her dramatically into his arms. Tonks leant towards Remus conspiratorially. "How much has he had to drink?"

"Not enough, apparently," Remus said, his eyes widening as he watched Sirius dip Molly so close to the floor that her hair brushed the stone. "I asked him the same thing just before you came in. It was that that inspired him to tell me about Maria. Thank you for rescuing me before he got to any of the really sordid details, by the way."

Tonks smiled at him and sipped her Butterbeer, and watched Sirius spin Molly around in front of them. Molly had stopped telling him to unhand her and seemed to be enjoying herself, and at least she'd stopped fretting about the sandwiches. "So who was this Maria?" she said, her curiosity about her cousin's antics getting the better of her.

"I'm not sure he would thank me for telling you," Remus said, raising one eyebrow at her.

"I can keep a secret," she said. He looked down at her for a moment, seemingly torn, the barest trace of a smile playing on the corners of his mouth.

"Suffice to say there was alcohol and impropriety involved," he said eventually, tilting his chin down and fixing his eyes on hers. "And vomiting, at a rather inopportune moment."

Tonks covered her mouth with her hand and sniggered into it. "I daresay you can imagine why I wasn't overly keen on hearing what happened next. Knowing him he probably just – Sirius," Remus said, his eyes snapping up just in time to catch her cousin approaching. "Worn Molly out already, I see."

Sirius reached behind them to grab his brimming wine glass and took a large swig before turning to Tonks and flashing her a broad grin. "Are you drunk enough to dance with me yet?"

"No."

"Drink up, then."

Tonks obligingly lifted her bottle to her lips and took a sip as Sirius jigged away towards a rather frightened-looking Hermione. Fred and George joined them on the makeshift dancefloor, launching immediately into a disco routine that would probably result in the aforementioned hospitalisation when one of them lost an eye, and Molly, having re-caught her breath, insisted that Ron and Harry get up and dance too. Tonks watched them move awkwardly from foot to foot for a few minutes, trying desperately not to laugh. Ginny didn't even attempt to hold in her chortle, until, that is, Molly pulled her to her feet and instructed her to show them how it was done.

It slowly dawned on Tonks that she and Remus were the only people not dancing. She took a large swig of Butterbeer and smiled at him nervously. He raised one eyebrow at her and offered her a lopsided smile, making her heart drop in her chest, bounce off her stomach and ricochet back up into her throat. "Are you drunk enough to dance with me yet?" he said. She swallowed, and he held out his hand. She set her bottle down on the table and eyed his hand.

"I think I might be," she said, taking it. She met his eye. "I apologise."

"What for?"

"For whatever happens next."

Remus laughed hard as he led her towards where the others were dancing, his fingers loosely clasped around hers. He turned to face her. "So what'll it be?" he said, grinning. "Waltz? Tango? Foxtrot?" He eyed the twins with amusement. "Limb-endangering disco routine?"

"I wasn't joking when I said I don't dance," she said. "I move around a bit and then fall over. That's it. You'd better just try and keep me upright."

"Well that doesn't sound like too tall an order," he said, his grey eyes glinting slightly in amusement as he gazed down at her.

He gingerly placed his other hand on her shoulder, and looked down at his waist and nodded at it to indicate that she should hold on. She obliged, willing herself to stay on her feet and not to get too distracted by the tingling sensations that having hands on shoulders and waists were causing. She scanned the floor for obvious hazards. There were a couple of Butterbeer corks, Crookshanks, and the constant worry of uneven flooring, and of course, other people. She just hoped she wouldn't make too big a fool of herself.

"Ready?" he said, and she nodded. He tightened his grip on her hand a little, and then they both stepped forward, their shins colliding. Tonks winced in pain and embarrassment. "Would you rather lead?" Remus said, smiling good-naturedly at her.

She shook her head and let out a rather nervous giggle as she muttered an apology. Remus raised a questioning eyebrow at her to determine if she was ready to try again, and she nodded, biting her lip in concentration. He stepped forward, she stepped backwards, and then she was so busy congratulating herself on taking one dance step without toppling over that she completely forgot to move the other leg and his crashed into it. They tried again, this time managing two whole steps before she trod on his toes. She took a stumbling step backwards, and he righted her before they attempted another, which passed without incident.

Before long they found a rhythm and speed that seemed to suit them, taking one rather ungainly step at a time and then pausing while she regained her balance. It wasn't entirely convincing as dancing, she thought, more like two people staggering around a bit, clutching onto each other and trying to stay upright. But she didn't mind, and he didn't seem to mind either, even when she stepped on his toes, which she did every time they tried to turn round or avoid crashing into someone, or kicked him, which she did when she wasn't concentrating on what her feet were supposed to be doing because she was too busy staring into his eyes and thinking about kissing him.

She liked being close to him, having a chance to experience the little details that had previously eluded her; feeling his jumper beneath her fingers, the way it shifted across the shirt he was wearing underneath as he moved. She liked the way he smelt, all clean and crisp like early mornings in springtime, and the way his fingers brushed hers as he changed his grip on her hand.

Most of all she liked the fact that he didn't seem to mind that she couldn't dance, that he seemed to enjoy their own kind of not-dancing as much as she did. She loved the way he laughed as one of them lost their footing and stumbled. It occurred to her that he didn't laugh nearly enough, and she liked being the cause of his face lighting up and his eyes twinkling, even though she'd have preferred to have been winning him over with witty conversation than clumsiness.

As another song ended, Sirius tapped Remus on the shoulder, and he stopped abruptly. Tonks stumbled a little, and Remus struggled to right her. As she straightened up he shot her an apologetic glance before giving Sirius his full attention. "Can I cut in?" Sirius said.

Tonks tried to stop a reluctant look from forming on her face. It wasn't that she didn't want to dance with Sirius, just….

"Of course," Remus said, dropping Tonks' hands and turning towards his old friend. But Sirius didn't take her hands – he grabbed Remus' and whirled them both around. Tonks roared with laughter at the surprised look on Remus' face, and as Sirius propelled him across the floor towards Molly and the twins, only stopping from colliding with them at the last minute as he changed course and dipped him, she had to lean on the table she was laughing so hard.

She'd barely had a chance to get her breath back when George grabbed her by the hand and insisted on trying to teach her a disco move.

The next few hours passed in a haze of dancing and drinking. She successfully managed to stay upright dancing with Hermione and Ginny, didn't maim either Fred or George despite their insistence that she stick to the proper routine, and it was only when Sirius cornered her and whisked her into some kind of jive that she found herself on her back, on the floor, starring at the ceiling and shaking with laughter. Despite her protests that she was fine where she was, Sirius insisted on pulling her to her feet and depositing her back with the twins, where he seemed to think she could do the least damage.

She was having such fun that she didn't even realise, in spite of the giant golden countdown on the wall, what the time was. As midnight struck, Sirius' countdown boomed the arrival of a new year with canon fire and the streamers burst into a flurry of red sparks. Tonks found herself on the opposite side of the room to Remus, between Fred and George who insisted on giving her kisses on either cheek, and could only watch as Remus bestowed his midnight kiss on a rather tipsy-looking Molly.

She couldn't really find it within herself to mind.

Soon enough Molly bustled the children off to bed, and although there were whoops and bangs from the twins' room for a while (closely followed by Molly shouting at them to stop whatever it was they were doing), eventually, Grimmauld Place fell quiet, with only Sirius, Remus and Tonks still awake in the kitchen.

Owing to a hefty serving of several kinds of drink, Sirius was in excellent spirits, and thumped the heavy dark table to punctuate the punch-line of the rather obscene joke he was currently telling. Remus chuckled after shooting Tonks a rather apologetic glance, and Sirius poured them all another glass of Ogden's Finest Festive Firepunch, the ingredients of which were rumoured to be roughly the same as Doxy repellent.

Tonks sipped her drink gingerly, trying not to cough as it scorched her throat. Sirius knocked his back. "So, cousin," he said. "Any New Year's resolutions?"

"The usual," she said. "Do the washing up straight away instead of leaving it to grow stuff, try and be nicer…maybe buy more sensible shoes."

She starred ruefully at the boots that had been pinching her toes all night, and then kicked them off under the table, wriggling her newly freed toes in her pink and red stripy socks.

"A tremendous set. And you, Moony?"

Remus shook his head. "Ah, I forgot," Sirius said. "You're already practically perfect in every way."

"That's me," Remus said with a wry smile.

"For my part I resolve to drink more," Sirius said, pouring himself another glass of Firepunch.

"You seem to be making an excellent start," Remus said.

"That I am. Cheers," he said, downing his drink. He reached for the bottle and was about to pour himself another glass when he thought better off it and swigged from the bottle. Remus shot him an appalled look across the table. "What?" Sirius said. "I'm just saving time."

For the next hour or so they exchanged stories – Sirius did most of the talking, when he wasn't knocking back Firepunch at least – and Remus interjected with asides that Sirius didn't appreciate and she chuckled at. She liked listening to him talk – the way his voice sounded, the way he rested his head on his hand as he listened, absentmindedly swirling his drink around in his glass with the other. She liked the way he paid attention when she talked, the way he wasn't just waiting for an opportunity to speak, the way he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, genuinely amused at her jokes.

She was so deep in Remus-inspired thoughts that she didn't notice Sirius slumping forward in his chair and mumbling a final sentence as he passed out with his face in a plate of cheese and pickle sandwiches. She looked up as he let out a snore.

Remus pushed his chair back from the table and rested his chin on his hands, which were folded on the table. She copied him, leaning on her forearms so she could look him right in the eye across the table top. "Do you think he'll be alright?" she said, gesturing towards Sirius' slumped form with a jerk of her head.

Remus raised an eyebrow at her, and then took one of his hands out from underneath his chin and poked Sirius on the arm. He grunted. "He's fine," Remus said, his eyes flickering back to hers as he retracted his hand back into position.

"That's how you tell, is it?"

"Tried and tested method," Remus replied.

"He'll have a hell of a hangover in the morning," Tonks said.

"Alas no," Remus said. "He doesn't get them."

"That's annoying."

"Quite."

She couldn't think of anything to say, and neither, apparently, could he, and so they gazed at each other across the table, heads resting on their hands, for so long that she forgot what the last thing either of them had said was.

It had been an odd kind of an evening, really. She wasn't sure she was really any closer to figuring out if he had feelings for her or not. He'd been friendly, and there had definitely been something different about him, although she couldn't really put a name on what it was. She wondered what would have happened if they'd been standing together at midnight. Would he have kissed her again? Would that really have solved anything, anyway? Another friendly gesture wouldn't really tell her anything….

"You look thoughtful," he said, regarding her from the top of his tower of fingers.

"That's 'cos I'm thinking," she said. He gave her a slight smile, and then reached into his pocket and pulled a coin out of it. He gingerly placed it on the table and, still resting his chin on one fist, he slid it across the table top towards her. "What's that?"

"Sickle for them," he said, his hand retreating back under his chin.

"A sickle?" she said. "They're much juicier than that."

"Really?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her across the table. "In that case…"

He reached into the pocket of his trousers and retrieved something shiny, then slid it across the table towards her. She almost didn't want to tear her eyes from his to look down and see what it was, but in the end curiosity got the better of her. It was a galleon. She slid it towards her and picked it up. "It's only a chocolate one," he said. "Harry bought me a bag for Christmas."

"Oh," she said, smiling. "And you keep one in your pocket at all times?"

"For emergencies," he said. "I think this counts."

Tonks smiled and unwrapped the foil slowly, extracting the chocolate coin, keenly aware that he was still watching her. She snapped the coin in half and slid one section back across the table towards him. "Thank you," he said, swiping it from its foil and popping it into his mouth. She did the same, waiting for it to melt in her mouth. "Now I believe you owe me a thought," he said.

"Oh," Tonks said, swallowing. She dropped her head back onto her arm. For a second she considered lying, but before she'd finished forming even the idea of one in her head, the words were out of her mouth. "I was just thinking that I wish we'd been standing together at midnight," she said. "Then you would have had to kiss me instead of Molly."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Indeed?" he said, with a half-smile that made her stomach tingle. "I can't say the same thought hadn't crossed my mind. However, that would have deprived the Weasley twins of the opportunity to kiss their favourite Order member, and I'm not sure they would have ever forgiven me."

His eyes twinkled with amusement in the firelight of the grimy basement. "And we never got to dance again," she said quietly.

"No," he said.

"I suppose your feet are grateful."

"Not at all," he said, getting up. Tonks leant back in her chair, watching as he walked round the table to join her and extended his hand. She took it a little uncertainly, and he pulled her gingerly to her feet.

"Are you sure about this?" she said, and he nodded. He adjusted his grip on her hand, lacing his long fingers through hers and resting his other hand on her waist as he pulled her towards him. She looked up at him, trying to still the banging of her heart in her chest before he heard it. "You must be very brave, or very stupid," she said. "Either that or you're impervious to bruises."

"Ah," he said, gazing down at her with his soft grey eyes, "you see, I think I've figured out what the problem was last time."

"Yes?" she said quietly.

"It seems to me that your feet meeting the ground is the cause of all the difficulty," he said. "If we avoid that, we should be alright."

"What are you going to do? Levitate me?"

"I had something rather less complicated in mind," he said. "You could just stand on mine."

"Stand on your feet?" she said, looking down at his shoes and then back up into his eyes.

He nodded and smiled.

She bit her lip and thought about it for a moment, knowing that if she accepted his offer, they'd be pressed together. A tingle raced up and down her spine at the thought, and she placed one stripy socked foot on his. He tightened his grip on her waist as she shifted her weight onto the foot that was already on his and lifted the other cautiously, tumbling into him. He steadied her, pulling her into him a little, until she regained her balance and she looked up at him from his chest, giggling nervously. "Now," he said. "Where were we?"

"You did offer me a tango," she said with a slight shrug, teetering on the tops of his feet.

"Ah, yes," he said, a little reluctantly. She raised an eyebrow at him in challenge. The corners of his mouth twitched in the start of a smile. He swivelled them both towards the fireplace, and held their arms stiffly out in front of them.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she said. Remus flashed both eyebrows at her, and then took a first lurching step, and she gripped the tops of his shoes with her toes, clinging to his shoulder desperately as she laughed. He took another step, and then another, and then stopped. She stared up at him expectantly, wobbling slightly until he tightened his grip on her.

"That's it," he said.

"That's it?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm afraid to inform you that I have no idea how to tango, aside from the first three steps. I just said I did to impress you."

His grey eyes twinkled and her heart fluttered in her chest, although whether the flutter was down to the fact that he had just said that he wanted to impress her or the way he was looking at her, she wasn't entirely sure. "So what do you know how to do?"

"I could attempt to bluff my way through a waltz, if you like."

She pressed her lips together against a grin. "Aren't your feet sore?" she said, wiggling her toes on the top of his shoes.

"I'll live."

"And am I to assume that you are, in fact, just as bad a dancer as I am?"

"I kept up my end of the bargain, didn't I?" he said. "I kept you upright."

"Yes," she said. "I suppose you did."

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. Even though they were in a somewhat damp and dreary basement, with wilted streamers and even more wilted party food, and her standing on his feet was ridiculous, and Sirius was emitting the odd snore, there was something unassailably romantic about their situation. Not traditionally romantic, she supposed, in fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever been in a less romantic setting, but still….

She noticed that at some point Remus had curled both their hands in and they were resting on his chest. She wasn't about to waste the opportunity.

"Doesn't explain why you asked me to dance if you don't know how, though," she said. He gazed down at her, and she thought she saw a glimmer of nervousness in his expression.

"I'd have thought that was perfectly obvious," he said softly. Her heart was beating so quickly she thought she might have a heart attack, but suddenly she felt a surge of bravery.

"Spell it out for me," she said.

He gave her the faintest flash of a smile, his eyes flickering down to her lips almost imperceptibly. His hand drifted up from her waist to her neck and rested there, his fingertips brushing the edges of her hairline and his thumb grazing her jaw as he tilted her face towards his. He placed a slow, soft kiss on her lips, moving over them gently and sending the most delightful shivers through her body. She tightened her grip on his waist and, pressing herself closer into his body, eased up onto her toes. His lips parted slightly above hers, and as he deepened the kiss and wound his fingers into her hair she barely held in a whimper. He slid his hand further into her hair, pulling her mouth more firmly against his in a soft but insistent kiss that made her blood buzz in her veins.

"Moony? Are you taking advantage of my cousin?"

Sirius' voice echoed through the kitchen and Remus pulled away, a rather startled expression on his face that soon gave way to dreamy sheepishness. Tonks stepped off his feet and his hand dropped from her waist and the other slipped out of her hair. She missed their warmth immediately. "Yes," Remus said, smiling at her conspiratorially. "I rather think I am."

She bit her lip and returned the look, trying very hard not to blush, and turned to face Sirius. "Oh," he said, a slightly smug look on his face as he sat up, peeling a squashed sandwich off his cheek. "Carry on, then."

Sirius got to his feet, and as he straightened up, swayed slightly, and then staggered backwards, his arms flailing, desperately trying to steady himself on thin air. He failed miserably to regain his balance and disappeared from view behind the table. There was a thud, and then groaning spiralled up from the floor.

Tonks bit her lip against a laugh and peered over the tabletop to see Sirius sprawled on his back on the floor, clutching at his head, a sheer brown smear of what she hoped was pickle on his cheek. She exchanged a glance with Remus, her heart cantering in her chest. "Time for bed, I think," he said.

"Are you talking to me or her?" Sirius spluttered, and then sniggered furiously.

Remus closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You," he said.

"I'm fine," Sirius slurred. "Just help me up and I'll Apparate upstairs and leave you two to it."

"You'll splinch yourself into a million pieces. Which is, of course, no less than you deserve, but I'm not sure I can face the mess."

Remus crouched down beside Sirius and took his proffered hand, wrapping Sirius' arm around his shoulder, and pulled him upright. "Come on," he said, anchoring Sirius' hand on his shoulder with one hand and reaching for his waist with the other. He heaved him to his feet with the relative ease of a man who'd had a lot of practice.

"I'll be fine on my own," Sirius said, swaying violently and clutching at Remus' neck to stay upright.

"Evidently," Remus said, his voice rather strangled.

Tonks dashed forward to help, pushing Sirius more upright. Remus shot her a grateful glance, and she took Sirius' other arm, holding it across her shoulders with one hand, and grabbing his belt with the other. "Really," Sirius said, slumping down onto them both. "This is totally unnecessary."

Tonks recoiled from his breath. She smiled at him weakly. "You never told me you fancied him," he said conversationally, as if Remus wasn't there.

"No," she said.

"You should've," he said. "He's been mooning over you for months."

Tonks tried, and failed, to keep her grin internal. "Let's get you upstairs, shall we?" Remus said. She couldn't resist a glance in his direction, and found his frown tempered by a slight smile. He was obviously quite acutely embarrassed, and she wondered if she'd ever seen him look more adorable.

They started stumbling towards the door, making it up the steps more by luck than judgement. "Don't wake your mother," Remus said sternly as he reached for the doorknob.

"Yes, I know. Shhhhh," Sirius said dramatically, spraying the air with a fine mist of alcoholic spit.

Between them they managed to heave Sirius up to his room, his feet alternating between dragging behind him on the carpet and stumbling to keep up. Mrs Black, mercifully, remained silent, and they deposited him on his bed, where he started snoring immediately. Remus took his boots off for him and placed them at the foot of the bed, his eyes darting around the room, his brow furrowed. "What?" she whispered.

"I was looking for a spare blanket."

"Oh," she said, smiling to herself at his thoughtfulness. "I've got one in my room, I think."

She crossed the hallway and pushed the door to her room open. They referred to it as her room even though she had her own home to go to whenever she chose, but even though she didn't really live there it had all the hallmarks of her real bedroom. Discarded clothes littered the floor, papers teetered in piles on every available surface and the whole room had an air of thorough disorder. She was gripped by a sudden panic as she surveyed it – what if Remus wanted to come in?

She scooped up a pile of clothes off the floor and wondered what to do with them. She managed to prize the wardrobe door open with her foot but it was full. She bit her lip, considering throwing them into the desk drawers. She dropped them back onto the floor and shoved them under the bed, frantically spinning through the room trying to squeeze all of her things under there. She picked up the straggling items, and clutched them to her chest, wondering where she could hide them. There was a knock and Remus' head appeared around the door. "Did you find one?"

"Oh," she said, dropping the offending articles and trying to kick them surreptitiously under the desk. She went over to the wardrobe and pulled a pink fuzzy blanket down off the shelf before crossing the room and handing it to him. "Yes."

He folded the blanket over his arm, smiling shyly at her. "Well," he said. "I'd better go and make sure he's alright."

"You're being a lot nicer than he deserves," she said, leaning on the doorframe. "Tucking him in and everything."

"The blanket?" he said. "Oh no, I was going to smother him with it."

"Oh," she said, chuckling slightly.

"He'd do the same for me."

"Has he?"

"Tried to smother me for divulging things I had no business divulging?"

"Looked after you when you'd had a bit too much to drink."

"Oh yes," he said, "but anything he tells you about what I did once after a bottle of Firewhiskey is a total lie."

Tonks grinned at him. "Are we back to hospitalisation, humiliation, nudity and fighting?" she said.

"Three out of the four."

"That sounds like an interesting story."

"One you will never hear," he said, smiling.

They gazed at each other for a moment. She wondered what he was thinking. "Have you really been mooning over me for months?" she said.

"Erm…" he said, nibbling his lip, his eyebrows squashing together as he decided what to say. He thought about it for a long time. "Yes," he said, eventually, a rather playful expression on his face as he winced at his own admission. "To a fairly large extent."

"Oh," she said, failing to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"What?" he said, his voice lilting as he smiled.

"Nothing."

"Ok," he said, wincing again. "Well, I'd better get back." He gestured to the blanket in his hand.

"Hmm."

"I'll see you tomorrow, maybe."

"Probably."

He smiled at her nervously and then turned away, and she did the same. Then she thought better of it and span back before she lost her nerve. "Remus?" she said, and he turned back to face her, resting his shoulder on the doorframe of Sirius' room.

"Hmm?"

"Me too."

He looked confused for a moment, and then as the realisation of what she was referring to dawned on him he grinned and let out a soft chuckle. "Well that's fortunate," he said. "Or this – " he gestured between them with his fuzzy-blanketed hand " – could have been really embarrassing."

Their mutual admission hung in the air between them and she bit her lip against an outright grin. "Go and suffocate my cousin," she said.

"With pleasure."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he said, his voice little more than an echo as he backed away into Sirius' room. "Happy new year."

She stepped into her room and closed the door softly behind her, before giving in to the weakness of her knees and sliding down onto the carpet. She hugged her knees against her chest and bit her knuckle to stifle the impulse to squeal in excitement which had, for some reason, overtaken her. His words danced around in her head much more gracefully than either of them had managed earlier. Happy new year, she thought to herself. It is now.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading, and reviewing. Reviewers get a New Year's snog from a fanfic Remus of their choice ;). **


	3. Werewolf, Interrupted

New Year's Day dawned before Tonks had really had a chance to appreciate being asleep, but when she remembered why she'd woken up with a grin on her face she didn't mind.

He liked her. Remus Lupin liked her. The grin widened.

She resisted the urge for as long as she could and then pulled a pillow over her face and squealed into it, kicking her legs beneath the covers to try and shift some of her nervous energy. She gave a final squeal of excitement before leaping out of bed and hopping around the room, trying to dispel the cold as she looked for her clothes. Then she remembered she'd forced them all under the bed and knelt down, extracting a red T shirt and jeans and brushing the dust off them. Rubbing her arms against the chill of the room she went over to the wardrobe and selected a black loose knit jumper to throw over the top.

She peered into the mirror and smiled at herself thoughtfully. Pink and red, she thought, only worked on socks. She lengthened her hair and turned it black. Much better.

She wondered if he'd be up yet. He probably was. However early she got out of bed, Remus always seemed to have beaten her to it. She wondered if he slept at all, but thinking of him doing anything even remotely bed-related gave her stomach tingles, and she decided she'd best try and put them to one side if she was going to make it downstairs in one piece.

She darted down the stairs, careful not to wake Mrs Black. She was sure that even if Sirius didn't get hangovers, he wouldn't appreciate a screeching wake-up call about half-breeds and blood traitors to welcome in the new year.

She tentatively pushed the door to the kitchen open to find Molly at her usual place by the stove and Remus sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a plate piled with far too much toast for one man to eat in front of him.

"Wotcher," she said, quietly. Now she was faced with the prospect of actually seeing him and talking to Remus, she had an inexplicable nervous twitch in her stomach. He glanced up at her over his shoulder and smiled, which did nothing to quell the nervous twitch.

"You're up bright and early, dear," Molly said. "There's tea on the table if you fancy a drop.""Thanks," she said. She slid into the seat next to Remus, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly to steady her jangling nerves.

"Morning," he said, setting down the piece of toast he had been eating and brushing the crumbs off his fingers. "Would you like some?" he asked, gesturing to the pot in front of him. She smiled at him in answer and _Summoned_ her heavily chipped 'I hate work' mug from the dresser. He filled it for her and then dropped two sugar lumps into it, and added just a dash of milk. She stared at him. She didn't remember ever telling him how she liked her tea, and yet he'd made it just the way she would have done.

"How did you know how I take my tea?" she asked. He gave her a look of rather shifty embarrassment from underneath his sandy hair. He pressed his lips together for a moment.

"Just something I noticed?" he offered sheepishly.

"Oh," she said, feeling that she might well be smirking. The nervous twitch was gone, replaced by something altogether warmer and fuzzier, and for a few minutes she was acutely aware of the slightly increased pace of her breathing and the ball of fluttering sensations that sat where her heart normally did.

She knew that if she was going to get through breakfast without knocking him from his chair and snogging him senseless on the floor she'd have to try to push the feelings aside. It was absurd, she thought, that something as simple as Remus noticing how she liked her tea should cause such a reaction.

Of course knowing it was absurd and being able to set it aside were two entirely different things.

"How's Sirius?" she asked, sipping her tea and smiling into the mug.

"Shockingly cheerful, I expect."

"You didn't smother him, then?"

"No," he said. "I didn't have the heart in the end. He looks annoyingly adorable when he's asleep."

"Which is a nice contrast," she said, "since he's adorably annoying when he's awake."

"Indeed," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement. "Tonks?" he said, leaning towards her, his voice low enough that Molly couldn't hear it over the bubbling of the porridge she was stirring. If she'd had a heart at that second and not just a ball of fluttering sensations, Tonks was sure it would have skipped a beat. "In light of what happened last night," he said, "the other thing, I mean, between us. I – "

"Remus?" Molly said, turning round suddenly. Remus looked up, forcing the startled expression off his face just before he met her eyes. "Any thoughts on getting the children back to school?"

"Knight Bus, I thought," he said, smiling slightly. Molly nodded her agreement and turned back to the stove. He leant in closer and lowered his voice. "I wondered – "

"You don't think it might be safer for them to Floo?" Molly said. Both of their heads snapped up but were still far too close together, and Molly's eyes darted suspiciously from Tonks' face to Remus'. Tonks tried to lean back surreptitiously and slowly, trying not to give away any flicker that there was something going on other than two Order members drinking tea together. She wasn't entirely sure she succeeded, and Molly continued to survey them both with narrowed eyes.

"We'll take all the necessary precautions," Remus said, resting his hands on the table. "And I'm not sure, with Umbridge on the prowl, that Flooing is any safer or even if she'd allow it."

"You're probably right."

Molly smiled at them both. Tonks waited for her to turn away and then leant back into Remus, brushing his arm with her shoulder. "What were you going to say?"

"I was just wondering if – "

"Toast, dear?" Molly said.

Tonks looked up, biting her lip. "Hmm, thanks," she said. Molly beamed and turned away, _Levitating_ a couple of slices out from under the grill and onto a plate in front of her. Tonks smiled her thanks at Molly and turned back to Remus. She wondered if she'd ever get the chance to know what Remus had been wondering.

"I – er," he said, "was just wondering if you – "

"You could go with them," Molly said, turning back abruptly. Apparently not, Tonks thought. "Both of you."

Remus closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, and Tonks tried desperately not to giggle at him. "Yes," he said.

"No problem," Tonks said, her voice a little strangled with the effort of not laughing. "I think I've got that day off anyway."

"That's settled, then," Molly said.

Remus leant on his elbow, massaging one eyebrow with his long fingers. He met her eye with an expression of rather amused infuriation which sent the fluttering into overdrive. "Quick," Tonks whispered, "before she thinks of something else."

"I was just wondering if you might – "

"Morning everyone," Sirius boomed, throwing the door open and striding into the kitchen with the air of a man who'd had nine blissful hours sleep rather than the air of a man who, six hours ago, had had his face in a plate of cheese and pickle sandwiches.

Tonks tried hard not to laugh as Remus closed his eyes and continued stroking his eyebrow. "Maybe you should write it down," she said, biting her lip as a mischievous grin erupted.

Molly bustled out to round up the other occupants of Grimmauld, and sensing an opportunity to actually get a sentence finished, Remus leant in again. This time he didn't even have the chance to get a word out.

"Aye aye," Sirius said, throwing himself down into a chair opposite. "You two look cosy. Not up to anything, are you?"

"The chance would be a fine thing," Remus sighed, shooting Sirius a look that would have frozen water.

"You're tetchy this morning," Sirius said, reaching across the table and stealing a piece of his toast. "What's the matter? Someone keep you up all night?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and smirked as he folded the slice in half and stuffed it into his mouth all at once.

"Yes," Remus said. "You."

"Oh," Sirius said through a mouthful of toast. The smirk faded and he swallowed with obvious effort before reaching for another slice. "I did wonder where the bucket came from. You didn't have to stay with me all night."

"I rather thought I did," Remus said. "I didn't want you to choke to death on your own bile. For the life of me I can't remember why."

Sirius grinned. "How is he doing that?" Tonks said to Remus. "How is he not curled up in bed throwing up his internal organs?"

"Oh he did plenty of that last night," Remus said bitterly. "I'm not sure he has any left."

Tonks bit her lip again. "Well that explains it."

"Would you please not talk about me as if I'm not here?" Sirius said.

"You're lucky I'm talking to you at all," Remus said.

"Why? What did I do?"

Remus rested his elbow on the table and leant on his hand wearily, regarding his friend with a raised eyebrow. "Let's just say your aim leaves a little to be desired."

Sirius looked momentarily startled. "That was you?"

Remus echoed his expression almost perfectly. "Who did you think it was?"

"Sandra Hathaway," Sirius admitted sheepishly.

"Sandra Hathaway?" Remus said, furrowing his brow as he thought. "That Ravenclaw prefect you went out with?"

"Yep."

"I had a lucky escape, then."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Remus said. "Just that on several occasions I opened a cupboard door and saw you two doing things that made me want to remove my brain and scrub it clean, none of which I would particularly have appreciated you trying to do with me."

"Are you sure you want to be talking about seeing things that make you want to yank your brain out and give it a good scrubbing, Moony?" Sirius said. "Because if you do, I'll see your Sandra Hathaway and raise you a favourite cousin."

Remus pressed his fingers together and bounced them on his lip. "Fair enough," he said, not entirely succeeding in concealing his mischievous smile behind his fingers. "Consider the subject closed."

"Oh no," Sirius said, grinning. "You're not getting off that lightly."

Remus sighed. "Go on, then," he said. "Let's get it over and done with."

"What?" Sirius said, his face fixed in a not-especially-convincing innocent expression.

"Whatever excruciatingly embarrassing little speech – or speeches – you have planned."

"You think you know me so well."

"I can read you like a book, Black."

"A cheap, trashy paperback?"

"Indeed," Remus said, leaning forward and staring intently at Sirius. "One with a very unconvincing hero on the front. A hero who has perhaps forgotten certain things that his oldest friend knows about him."

Remus raised his eyebrow, and Tonks' eyes switched rapidly between the two as if she was watching a tennis match. "Certain things," Remus continued, "that, perhaps, the hero would not want certain members of his family to know about. Certain things that he should keep in mind when he makes whatever speech he's about to make."

"What are you talking about, Moony?"

"I'll give you a clue," Remus said. "The first word is Rebecca, and the second is Hammond."

Sirius' eyes widened to an almost alarming extent and he fell back in his chair as if Remus had pushed him. "You wouldn't."

Remus leant back in his chair, resting his head on the thumb and index finger of one hand. "Make your speech," he said, tapping his cheek with his finger, a rather impish look on his face, "and then we'll see, won't we?"

Sirius swallowed and cleared his throat. "I was just going to say that I'm, you know, going to stay out of it entirely," he said. "None of my business, really."

Remus took a sip of his tea. "Thank you."

"I hate you sometimes," Sirius muttered, his pursed lips twitching from side to side in annoyance that his plan had been foiled.

"I know."

Tonks made a note to file the name Rebecca Hammond and bring it up at a later date, thinking that if whatever it was had such a hold over her cousin, it was probably a story worth hearing.

Sirius glowered at Remus for a few minutes, and then got bored and started to try and draw them both into a post-party dissection which carefully skirted any mention of anything he might have seen happen between them in the kitchen. They were just discussing what kind of charm the twins may have used on the streamers when the door opened and the room filled with chattering voices and red hair as Molly shooed the Weasley clan in to breakfast and Hermione and Harry tagged along obediently.

"If you'll excuse me," Remus said, standing up. "I didn't get much sleep last night."

He exchanged a flurry of good mornings with the children, and then disappeared through the door.

Tonks waited a moment, and then, ignoring Sirius' juvenile suggestive glances, slipped out of the kitchen and followed Remus upstairs. She knocked softly on his door, and he opened it immediately, smiling at her as he gestured for her to come in and closed the door behind her.

She'd never been in his room before, and she took the opportunity to sneak a look at it. It wasn't nearly as tidy or ordered as she thought it might have been. It lacked the piles of clothes everywhere that her room made a speciality of, but the desk was as cluttered as hers was, piled high with folders she, Arthur and Kingsley had copied at the Ministry on one side, and thick, dusty, reference books on the other, with rolls of parchment nestling together in the centre. The bed was made but rather inexpertly, and his bookcase was full, but with all the volumes on one side in an order that appeared to be entirely random, as if he'd shoved them in anywhere they'd fit.

"Hi," she said, suddenly feeling the twinge of nervousness in her stomach again.

"Hello," he said. "I apologise for having to blackmail your cousin in front of you."

"No need," she said. "I quite enjoyed it. I take it that wasn't your first time using him against himself?"

"No," he said. "He does make it rather easy. I daresay he'll make me pay for it at some point, though."

"Maybe not," she said.

Remus raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. "Wishful thinking," she concurred. She shifted from foot to foot with awkwardness. "Anyway," she said. "I just thought you might like the opportunity to say whatever you were going to say downstairs."

"Oh," he said. "Yes. I was just wondering if – "

There was a knock at the door, and Remus sighed at her, his eyes twinkling. "I suppose I should have seen that coming," he whispered.

Instinctively Tonks dodged behind the door, and Remus shot her a conspiratorial look as he stepped forward and opened it, hiding her from whoever was on the other side of the door.

"Harry," he said.

"Hello Professor," Harry said.

"You don't have to call me Professor any more, Harry."

"I know," Harry replied. "Force of habit. Sorry."

"What can I do for you?"

"There's a spell in one of the books you bought me for Christmas that I think might be really useful for us all to learn," he said. "Only I don't quite understand it and Hermione can't explain it to me properly. Sirius said I should ask you about it, and that you weren't doing anything important at the moment so…"

Remus let out a breath which, to Tonks at least, sounded very much like the word 'git'. She bit her lip to keep from blurting out a laugh and giving away her position and when that was on the brink of failing, clamped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't expected Sirius' retribution to be so swift. "Of course," Remus said good-naturedly. "Why don't we go downstairs where there's more room and you can show me what the problem is?"

Harry murmured his assent and Remus shot her the briefest of glances. "I'll owl you," he said dryly, and then closed the door behind him.

She chuckled to herself for a few minutes and then crept out of Remus' room and back downstairs to amuse herself watching Remus glower at Sirius and Sirius pretend not to know what he'd done.

For the rest of the day they were always surrounded and bound to be interrupted, and so Remus didn't even try to talk to her about whatever it was that he'd been trying to talk to her about. She wondered if he'd been about to ask her out, but even in the wake of the previous night's admission it seemed like too thrilling a possibility to become reality. She didn't want to get her hopes up, just in case what he'd been about to say was 'I was just wondering if you agree that last night was a giant mistake' or something else equally crushing.

It was evening before they ran into each other alone, in the hallway. "Ah, Tonks," he said, peering up and down the corridor. "Have you got a minute?" he added. She nodded, and he opened the door to the library for her, ushering her inside. He perched on the edge of the sofa, and she followed suit.

He looked at her for a very long time. "I was just giving people a chance to interrupt," he said, and she let out a soft chuckle.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"To be honest I can't remember," he sighed, shaking his head ruefully. "This morning I had it all planned – I had a speech – "

"A speech?"

"I _was_ up all night," he said, "and the range of reading material Sirius has in his room is – shall we say – interesting, but limited in scope. And mostly pictures."

She chuckled at what she thought he was probably implying, and when she looked up, Remus was staring into the middle-distance in thought. "I'm fairly certain the speech started with the word 'I'," he said, snapping his eyes back to hers. "The rest eludes me at present."

She laughed, and he smiled somewhat nervously. "Actually," he said, with such utter sincerity that the flutters that had taken all day to slowly disperse instantly sprang back into life, "I wanted to ask you if you might like to go out with me."

Her heart fluttered so madly she thought it might take off. "Oh," she said. "Yes."

"You don't want to give it a moment's thought?" he said, giving her a rather disbelieving lopsided smile that made her stomach twist into an entirely new position.

"No," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Are you trying to talk me out of it?"

"No," he said, letting out a soft breath of laughter. "It's just – if you'd changed your mind – or thought better of it – "

"I haven't."

"It's just – "

He stalled, his brow furrowed. He seemed on the verge of saying something that was causing him a great deal of effort. She edged slightly closer to him on the sofa. He avoided her eyes for a moment, but then took a breath and fixed his soft grey eyes on hers, making her heart buckle. "I'm keenly aware that I don't really have a lot to offer a girl," he said, his eyes flickering down again momentarily. "I'm abysmally poor, and with my – er – condition that's not going to change in the near future. I won't be able to take you to fancy restaurants or anything."

"Oh well you needn't worry about that," she said. "I'm banned from nearly every wizarding restaurant in Great Britain already, so you couldn't, even if you wanted to."

He let out another soft chuckle and then wrestled himself back to seriousness, seemingly against his own wishes. "And I'm older than you are," he said, "quite a bit older, actually. I mean, when you were born I was already a moody teenager, and when you were seventeen I was thirty. When I was your age, you were ten –"

She smiled at him, and he stopped. "And if you'd asked me out when I was ten, that would've been a problem," she said. "Mostly because you'd still be in prison."

"If that's supposed to make me feel less like a lecherous old man," he said, leaning back on the seat and raising an eyebrow at her, "it could do with a little work."

"Sorry," she said, sniggering slightly as she followed his lead and sank backwards. She turned towards him slightly. "If it's any help I don't think of you as remotely old."

His eyes flashed with amusement as he glanced at her. "How about lecherous?"

"I'm reserving judgement on that until I've got more evidence."

He paused for a moment, evidently on the verge of a grin, and seemingly having lost his thread. He swallowed. "And, of course," he said, "a stroll by the light of the full moon is completely out of the question."

"I've never been much of a one for romantic clichés," she said.

"Somehow," he said, "I suspected you wouldn't be."

His knee brushed hers as he turned towards her slightly, far closer than she'd thought he would be. "I just wanted to make sure you'd thought about things," he said, his eyes as soft as he looked at her as his voice when he spoke.

"I have," she said. "And the answer's still yes."

He gazed at her with a glint of something unusual in his eyes, something she wasn't sure she'd seen before, and held her eyes with his for so long she could've probably counted his eyelashes if she'd thought to instead of just gazing back.

"Well, then," he said, smiling.

"Well then, what?" she asked.

"I didn't really have anything else to add," he said. "I just felt one of us should say something, and, although I have a reputation for being rather taciturn, I thought it should be me."

"Oh," she said.

"I'm done now, though."

"Shame," she said, "because I could listen to you ramble on all night."

He smiled widely, and then slowly closed the rather short distance between them. He raised his hand to her cheek and looked into her eyes briefly before he touched his lips to hers. She was gradually coming to the conclusion that kissing Remus was certain to cause a number of sensations: a rather light-headed, intoxicated feeling, a fizzing in her veins, and a delightful all over tingle that only intensified when his hand moved across the skin of her cheek and into her hair. He gently teased her lips apart with his, giving her a languid kiss which filled her with a rather desperate yearning for more. He pulled away, his eyes sparkling. "I have to ask," he said, scuffing her cheek with his thumb as he gazed into her eyes. "How on earth do you get banned from a restaurant?"

She smiled at him, then laughed rather breathily. "It's easier than you'd think," she said. "Well, maybe not for a normal person," she added, "but if you're the kind of person who's a menace to crockery, accidentally impales themselves on chopsticks, or, say, covers the proprietor's mother-in-law in French onion soup and smacks her on the head with a ladle, pretty easy."

He leant forward and their lips met for the briefest and most exquisite of seconds before he pulled back again, just far enough to look her in the eye. "Impaled on chopsticks?"

"Only once. Total freak occurrence."

"Oh," he murmured, his eyebrows twitching in amusement. As he brushed his lips across hers, she could feel him smiling. She raised a hand to his face and sighed into him.

Then the door slammed open. Tonks and Remus sprang back to their respective ends of the sofa, exchanging embarrassed, guilty glances as Fred and George stumbled in, arguing about one of their concoctions.

"Professor," George said. If they'd been rumbled, Tonks saw no trace of it on George's face, and she thought that seeing a former professor kissing someone probably would have produced at least a smirk, and probably a joke, if not a stampede out of the room to tell everyone they'd ever met.

"Tonks," Fred added, equally unruffled. "Didn't know you were in here."

"We were just looking for a hint about recipes that might work with engorging charms."

"Working on an idea for the ultimate blow up, blow out banquet."

"Thought we'd try a book, rather than trial and error."

"For a change."

"Sick of getting accidentally poisoned."

"You know how it is."

"Bottom shelf," Remus said, rolling his eyes. "Start on the right. And don't tell your mother I helped you."

The twins made for the bookcase. Remus jerked his head towards the door, and Tonks followed him out into the hall. He closed the door on Fred and George, who were arguing about whether to start with _The Silver Spoon: Recipes To Impress_ or _Cupboard Love: Recipes To Keep Those You Love In Line_.

"Given our luck today," he said, "I'd better make this quick. Friday?" he said, and she nodded. "Do you want to meet here?"

"I don't think so," she said. "It's taken you – " she checked her watch " – nine hours to ask me out. Imagine how long it would take us to actually make it out of the door."

He made a face of exasperated agreement. "I could pick you up at your flat?" he offered.

"Ok," she said. "I'm working until seven, but after that I'm all yours."

They arranged to meet at eight, and she scribbled her address on a scrap of parchment, told him where to Apparate to and handed it to him. He tucked it into his pocket. "Anyway," he said, "as I was saying before – "

"Hmm? Were you saying something?"

"Erm," he said, biting his lips thoughtfully. "I think it went something like this…"

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and slowly brushed his lips over hers again. She was vaguely aware of a door opening.

"Well well, Moony," Sirius said. "Sprung twice in two days. Just a slave to your hormones, these days, I see."

Remus pulled away and sighed, giving her a rather apologetic glance. Sirius strode past them and ran up the stairs, sniggering.

"You should have smothered him when you had the chance," Tonks said.

As Tonks slipped back into bed that night, she was still grinning, and she couldn't, hand on heart, say that she expected the situation to change any time soon.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (especially wcoast-girl for recommending it on LJ). Everyone who reviews this one is, I think, entitled to a full on snog from the fan fic Remus of their choice, assuming, of course, they can find somewhere to do it ; )**


	4. Do You Remember The First Time?

Tonks was fraught. She'd had an hour after work to get ready, which would have been plenty of time were it not for the fact that she'd wasted the first forty-five minutes panicking about what to wear. She looked from the pile of considered and then discarded clothes on the bed to the empty wardrobe and back again, wishing she'd asked Remus to pick her up at half past.

Inexplicably, the nervous twitch in her stomach was back. Logic told her that she had nothing at all to be nervous about: she knew that Remus liked her, and that all they were going to do was spend an evening together – something they'd done on several occasions on missions for the Order, or at Grimmauld Place.

But logic, of course, had nothing to do with it. Logic wasn't the thing whispering in her ear about how hideous it would be if he decided that he didn't like her after all, or if she did something stupid and embarrassed herself, or if the night was full of awkward pauses and badly-phrased questions as they desperately searched for something in common away from conversations about suspected Death Eaters and frustrations with the Ministry.

And somehow, all of that had got channelled into crippling indecision about which T shirt went best with her favourite jeans.

She took a few deep breaths and told herself not to be ridiculous. Remus wouldn't care what she wore. After all, he'd seen her with hippogriff feathers in her hair after she'd slipped feeding Buckbeak, and apparently still found her attractive enough to ask out. She decided on the yellow T shirt she'd tried on first, and pulled it on. She considered herself in the mirror for a moment, thinking that although it was slightly clingy and slightly off the shoulder, it wasn't too scarily sexy after all, and in fact, she rather liked the way she looked in it.

She settled on shoulder-length, wavy, midnight blue hair after a couple of minutes, and was just deciding if wearing her pendant as Peridot was too much of a clash with her hair _and_ her T shirt when there was a knock at the door.

The nervous twitch in her stomach expanded to take in all of her internal organs and they jostled for position inside her, making her feel vaguely nauseous and a bit light-headed. She took a few more deep breaths and then crossed the flat and opened the door.

"Wotcher," she said, and he smiled shyly.

"Ready?"

"Yes," she said, her heart fluttering. "I just need to find some shoes. Come in for a minute."

He stepped inside, and she hesitated for a moment, wishing that finding a pair of shoes would involve something other than scrabbling on the floor at his feet in the large pile of assorted footwear that she kept by the door. She offered him a faint smile of apology for her untidiness, and then knelt down, desperately rooting though the mass of brightly coloured flip flops, boots and trainers for a matching pair that were vaguely appropriate. She found a couple of likely candidates, and, clutching one pair in each hand, she stood up to give him the choice.

"Strappy high-heeled things?" she said, holding out the shoes her mother had bought her as part of her ongoing effort to make her more lady-like by their straps. He raised an eyebrow at them in consideration. She swung the trainers towards him by their green laces. "Or stinky old trainers?"

"I must confess that the lecherous man in me is tempted to say strappy high-heeled things. However," he said, inclining his head towards her slightly, "the person who's concerned about you breaking an ankle thinks trainers."

"Very considerate of you."

"Entirely selfish, actually," he said, leaning back and smiling slightly, his eyes twinkling. "I'm squeamish."

She smiled and let out a breathy chuckle, worming her toes into the carpet in the desperate hope that knowing she was definitely anchored to the floor would make her feel a bit less like fainting. "Where are we going, then?" she said, telling herself that there was absolutely no reason to be nervous, and knowing that she wouldn't listen.

"Well," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets and shooting her a cheeky look that did nothing at all to still her jangling nerves, "if you've no objections, I thought I'd take you out and get you drunk."

She grinned. "You can try, Remus," she said.

"Sounds like a challenge."

"It is," she said, deciding on the trainers and tossing the others back into the pile. "Aurors pride themselves on their hollow-legged abilities," she said, pulling on her trainers.

She grabbed her short pinstriped jacket from the hook next to the door and shrugged into it, and then snatched a long pink scarf from the back of the sofa and looped it around her neck twice before tying a knot in it. Remus gazed at her with a slightly glazed expression. "What?" she said. He swallowed.

"You look – well, I _was_ going to say nice," he said. He glanced at the ceiling briefly and then his eyes flickered back to hers and he raised an eyebrow at her. "But I think wonderful comes slightly closer to the mark."

She made a rather strangled noise of surprise somewhere in the back of her throat. "Come on," he said, and he nudged her with his elbow. She tentatively linked her arm through his as the rather familiar Remus-inspired fluttering in her chest took her over, and drowned out the voice in her head telling her to pull herself together. He lead her out into the corridor, and she sealed the door behind them. "Ready?"

She tightened her grip on his arm in response and he Apparated them both to somewhere that looked very familiar….

"Hogsmeade?" she said.

"Yes. I thought we'd start at the Three Broomsticks and then work our way down."

"Work our way down what?"

"The country."

Tonks almost jumped in surprise. She couldn't quite believe what he'd said. "The country?" she said, fully aware that she was regarding him with rather wide eyes.

"Yes," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The idea is that we take it in turns to choose both drinks and destinations, ideally ending up a little closer to home than we are now, and not so drunk that neither of us remembers where we live."

She tried to hold in her grin as long as she could, and then laughed. It echoed off the cold cobbles and into the crisp, January night, and he regarded her askance with a slightly nervous smile. "Would you rather stay in one place all night?"

"No," she said. "I just – "

What she wanted to say was that if someone had asked her to guess where Remus Lupin would take her on a night out, a pub crawl through the entire country wouldn't have made the top ten, maybe not even the top hundred, suggestions she'd have come up with. "I – I wasn't really expecting something like this."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Pleasantly surprised or hideously shocked?"

"Pleasantly shocked," she said, and he grinned.

"Come on, then."

The Three Broomsticks was heaving with witches and wizards keen to celebrate the first weekend after the festive season, but she managed to find an empty booth while Remus went to the bar. She unwound her scarf, took off her jacket and lay both on the seat next to her, and pondered the concept. Remus Lupin, staid professor, on a pub crawl. She rolled the idea around in her mind, finding that perhaps, on reflection, it wasn't really that surprising or incongruous a concept. After all, to her, he wasn't Remus Lupin, staid professor any more, but Remus Lupin, seasoned blackmailer, who had embarrassed himself so severely after too much Firewhiskey that he wouldn't even tell her the story, and kissed her so sexily she thought she might melt. Compared to that a pub crawl seemed all very fitting, and even a bit tame.

She rested her head on her hand and watched him as he ordered a couple of drinks, paid for them and then came over, setting two beige stone mugs on the table before sitting down across from her. He took off his overcoat to reveal a dark green V neck jumper and white shirt that looked considerably less shabby than most of his clothes. She smiled to herself at the thought.

"So what are we drinking?" she said, peering into the mug where a yellowish, clear liquid with green bits floating in it twinkled at her.

"Mulled mead," he said.

"Oh," she said. "Very nice."

"Well," he said, wrapping his long fingers around his mug, "it was that or a flaming Firewhiskey."

"Didn't fancy it?"

"Maybe later," he said, raising one eyebrow at her. "Although last time I tried it, I did set fire to my hair."

She leant forward and eyed him inquisitively. "Would that be the fabled Firewhiskey incident?"

"Oh no," he said. "A slightly singed fringe pales into insignificance compared to that."

"Are you going to tell me the story?"

"No," he said, lifting his mug to his lips.

"Will you at least tell me which three out of the four?"

Remus' lips twitched in amusement as he considered her request. "I didn't go to hospital," he said eventually into the rim of his mug. She grinned.

"So that just leaves my favourite three," she said.

"And now, my lips are sealed."

"I'll get it out of you eventually." His eyes flickered up to meet hers.

"I look forward to you trying."

She bit her lip and raised her mug to her lips, smiling into it and trying desperately not to squeal in triumph at the flirty sparkle in his eyes. She took a sip of her drink just to have something to do, and it was surprisingly pleasant, like alcoholic, warm honey. Remus watched her intently, and she felt she should probably say something instead of just gazing at him from behind her mug and wondering when – or if – he was going to kiss her. "Anyway," she said, trying to steer herself away from the thought. "How on earth did you stumble upon this rather unusual idea for a night out?"

"Well," he said. "I don't really know a great deal about where you like to go or what you like to do, and this way you get to show me."

She thought about it for a moment, and the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. "You're a genius," she said.

"Or hideously indecisive," he said, tilting his head to one side, raising one eyebrow slightly and peering at her through his fringe. "Depending on how you look at it."

"I'll stick with the former. For now."

"Thank you," he said, taking a sip of his mulled mead before fixing her with a wry gaze. "Plus, if I hate all the places you take me, and you hate all the places I take you, neither of us has to suffer for very long. And I thought the fresh air might be nice."

"You've given this a lot of thought," she said.

"Naturally."

She took a sip of her mulled mead to try and still the fluttering in her chest and then stared into the mug, trying desperately to think of something to say that wasn't a desperate proclamation of how much she fancied him.

"What d'you think the floating green bits are?" she said. It was the best she could come up with under the circumstances.

Remus stared into his mug thoughtfully for a second. "Well," he said, "I don't claim to be an expert on floating green bits, but I'd say parsley. Of course it could be anything," he continued. "Historically, mead has been flavoured with all sorts of things – fruit, vegetables, spices, even flowers. It easily takes on the flavour of whatever is added, although often it's better to add a tea made with whatever you choose to flavour it with than the ingredient itself."

It was a moment or two before she realised she was staring at him open-mouthed. "How on earth do you know that?"

"I don't," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "The people standing next to me at the bar were talking about it."

"And you thought you'd pass their knowledge off as your own?"

"Well yes," he said, raising his mug to his lips. "Every grown man knows that the way to a woman's heart is through an in-depth knowledge of ancient brewing techniques."

She laughed, and he smiled at her with the same flirty sparkle in his eyes he'd had a moment ago. She bit her lip as she grinned at him across the table, not entirely sure if she was grinning at the flirty smile or the fact that he was interested in the way to her heart. Either way, the jagged nervousness was gone, replaced by the warm fluttering of anticipation that she'd come to associate with being near him. She slid forward in her seat and brushed her knees against his under the table.

They chatted for the next half an hour until they'd both finished their mead, and then made their way into the crisp evening air, buttoning their coats and wrapping scarves around themselves as they went. "Where to next?" he said. Tonks bit her lip in thought. She'd completely forgotten that the next choice was hers. Only one place sprang to mind:

"Manchester."

Tonks Apparated them both to a deserted, rubbish-strewn alleyway right in the heart of the city. The sky was heavy with grey clouds and the hum of nearby traffic and excited, Friday night chatter wound its way around them. "I knew I could rely on you to take me somewhere nice," he said, raising an eyebrow at her as he took in the empty cardboard boxes, discarded kebabs and vague stench of burnt grease and smoke. She rolled her eyes at him, and dragged him out of the alley and to the bar she had in mind.

It hadn't changed since the last time she'd been there – it was gaudy and loud, with pink walls, wrought iron tables and purple easy chairs and sofas, and people wore every colour and every fabric and nodded along to the thumping, distorted, bass line of a big beat tune she couldn't remember the name of. Three years ago, Pit Stop Penelope's had been her favourite place in the world. She chanced a glance at Remus and found him looking around with an expression of interest and amusement as if he didn't quite know what to make of it and was vaguely intrigued, and possibly a little frightened.

She deposited him on a free sofa, threw her jacket and scarf down next to him and went to the bar. When the barman came over she pointed to a couple of things on the cocktail menu and watched as he made them with bored ease. She paid, and squeezed her way through the crowd to where she'd left Remus.

He wasn't alone.

Somehow, in the five minutes she'd been at the bar, he'd acquired a woman who seemed to consist of nothing but scrappy blonde hair and legs. Had it not have been for the expression of vague fear and bafflement on his face, Tonks thought she probably would have been jealous. As it was, she was just annoyed that she didn't have a camera.

As she approached, Remus met her eye and mouthed something that looked a bit like the word 'help'. The woman looked up and glared, before standing up with the briefest of teeters on her high heels, adjusting her practically non-existent skirt, and then backing away, blowing a kiss in Remus' direction.

"I see you made a friend," Tonks said, sinking down beside him and trying to conceal her amusement as she raised her eyebrows at him.

"She just sat down and started talking to me," he said with an expression of such utter confusion she had the sudden urge to ruffle his hair.

"She did, did she?"

He eyed her warily. "She said she thought I was canny. I've no idea what that means." Tonks smiled. Leggy blonde had got that right. "I take it that's a good thing?"

"Oh yes. I suppose I should have known better than to leave you alone here on a Friday night. I remember one time I was barely through the door when this bloke grabbed me and – " she trailed off at the expression of horror on Remus' face " – did something you evidently don't want to hear about."

"I'm off the hook, then?" he said.

"I suppose," she said melodramatically, and he smiled with obvious relief. "Although I think she had other ideas."

She handed him the drink she'd bought him – a long glass filled with ice and a liquid roughly the same shade as her T shirt, topped with a glittery pink umbrella and a long green straw with a cherry impaled half-way down. He eyed it dubiously for a moment, and then took a sip, and the look on his face implied that he instantly wished he hadn't. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and held the glass away from him as if it was a hideous-smelling potion. She couldn't help laughing at him.

"That's…" he said. He swallowed and blinked, searching for the right word for a few minutes, before giving up. His expression dissolved into a quizzical one and he peered at the drink as if it was some kind of experiment. "What is that?"

"It's a Nana Colada."

"A what?"

"It's like a Pina Colada, but with banana instead of pineapple," she said. He took another experimental sip, and shuddered.

"Maybe I'll get used to it," he said. He didn't look convinced.

"I just wanted to get you something with an umbrella in it," she said through a soft, breathy laugh.

"Thanks," he said, shooting her an amused glance as he cradled the glass in his lap, "I feel very manly."

She sniggered at him, and then held her glass out to him. "Here. Try mine."

He took it from her, offering her his in return. She caught the straw and took a sip, only to be rewarded with a mouthful of sickly, synthetic, vaguely banana-ish tasting liquid. "Well," she said, "I think we've firmly established that the only fruit worth colada-ing is a pineapple."

"Is that a real word?"

"It should be," she said. He held her drink up to the light, eying the red liquid with cautious interest. "It won't bite, Remus," she said, and he shot her a brief glance of reluctance, and then took a sip.

"That's – " he fought to find the right word, she suspected trying to reconcile his natural tendency towards politeness with the grimace on his face, " – worse," he said eventually, laughing. "What is it?"

"Strawberry Daiquiri."

She took the glass back from him and sipped it as he watched her. "So this is what you do on your nights off, is it?" he said. "You come to places like this and drink fruity cocktails?"

"Not so much these days," she said. "Can I have your cherry?"

Remus shot back into the arm of the sofa as rapidly as if she'd drawn her wand, and his eyebrows leapt in such great surprise that they disappeared into his hair. "My what?"

"Your cherry," she said, confusedly pointing to the one impaled on his straw. His eyes traced the path she was indicating to the drink in his hand and his eyes widened in realisation.

"Oh," he said, extracting the straw, tapping it on the side of his glass and holding it out to her. "Of course," he added, grinning sheepishly and then breaking into a rather breathy laugh as he relaxed again.

She took the straw from him and eyed him suspiciously. "Sorry," he said, avoiding her eyes with a rather shifty expression on his face. "It's just – for a moment, there, I thought you were talking about something else entirely," he said, his voice lilting with amusement as he met her eyes with a look that was equal parts flirty suggestion and sheepishness. "Something which, I'm afraid to inform you, I gave away rather recklessly a long time ago."

The pieces finally slotted together in her mind, although it was more the look on his face than his words that finally sealed that he _was_ actually talking about what she thought he might be talking about. "Oh," she said, slowly. She placed her glass on the table, and then slid the offending cherry along the straw to free it and popped it into her mouth, feeling as if she was teetering on the brink of a no-doubt highly unflattering burst of hysterical laughter.

She was pretty certain that of all the things Remus intended to talk to her about that evening, losing his virginity wasn't one of them. It was too good an opportunity to waste. She couldn't resist teasing him. Well, she _could_. She just didn't want to.

"That's the kind of girl you think I am, is it?" she said. "The kind of girl who'd buy a man one Nana Colada and proposition him?" Her words had exactly the effect she was hoping for.

"No – of course not," he said earnestly. "I just – I was surprised – I hadn't noticed – "

"I'd at least have bought you dinner," she said. He shot her a mock-glare when he realised she was joking and she dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"I was just surprised when I thought that you thought that I might still be –"

"I didn't," she said. "I was just talking about fruit. You're the one with the smutty mind."

"I do not have a smutty mind," he said, and her giggles only intensified the more embarrassed he looked.

"No," she said. "You just jumped to the conclusion that I was propositioning you, which means that you must have been thinking about it."

He turned to face her, resting his elbow on the back of the sofa and rubbing his forehead with his long fingers as he peered at her with rather acute embarrassment. "You're not going to let me off this hook as easily, are you?" he said, laughing as he pressed his fingertips into his forehead.

"No," she said. He looked far too adorable when he was flustered for her to help him out by changing the subject. "You got yourself onto it, you can get yourself off it."

He rubbed his forehead for a moment, and then sighed and met her eyes before clearing his throat. "So," he said, dropping his hand from his face to his drink and twirling his umbrella around with feigned coolness as he prepared to attempt to wrestle them back onto more even conversational ground. "You don't get much chance to come here anymore?"

She pressed her lips together in an attempt not to grin at the effort it was obviously costing him, but decided to answer anyway. "No," she said, reaching for her drink and taking a sip, "with work and everything I don't get much chance to go anywhere. I used to come here all the time, though, when I was training."

"Well I'm glad to have provided you with an excuse," he said, his lips twitching with the effort of not laughing, his eyes twinkling. "And possibly an amusing story to tell any new friends you might make the next time you come here."

She sniggered into her drink. "Do you want to tell me about the 'rather recklessly' part of your confession?" she said. He studied the fabric on the back of the sofa intently.

"Erm…no," he said, his voice oddly strangled with the effort of not laughing. "Not especially."

"Alright," she said. "But don't think I'm not going to come back to it later when you're more drunk."

He smiled with a kind of resigned weariness, and then gladly accepted her challenge to finish his drink and take her somewhere else. On the way out they passed the blonde woman, who was intently snogging a man with a scrappy ginger beard. "Well, she seems to be over me," Remus said. She linked her arm through his and gave him a comforting nudge with her shoulder.

"Where are we off to now, then?" she said when they were back in the alley.

"I believe I promised you a flaming Firewhiskey," he said. "And for some reason," he added dryly, "I feel like a stiff drink. Ready?"

She covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed, and then nodded.

He took her to a wizarding pub called The Grinning Kneazle, which was very similar to The Leaky Cauldron in both décor and clientele, and as far as she could work out, somewhere in the Midlands. He presented her with the promised flaming Firewhiskey, giving her the opportunity to use the phrase 'gird your fringe' and get a playful icy look in return. Remus managed not to set fire to his hair, and Tonks managed to only lightly singe the bar when she dribbled some after failing to put hers out properly. They made a hasty retreat, and she took him to an ultra-modern vodka bar in Oxford which she had last been to on a rather messy evening out with some of the blokes from the Magical Law Enforcement department. They downed shots of chilli pepper vodka that made them both sneeze violently, and then staggered bleary-eyed into a side street to get as far away from the place as they could as quickly as possible.

"Somewhere more traditional?" Remus asked, and she took his hand, closed her eyes and nodded. She was very much enjoying their whistle-stop drinking tour of the country.

When she opened her eyes, they were behind a small, white building with a grey slate roof, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Behind them there was a conifer-covered hill, and in the vague distance she could see the twinkling lights of a house or two nestled in open farmland. "Where are we?"

"Norfolk."

"More specifically?" she said.

"The Poplars," he said. She shot him a look that said that made things no clearer, which he steadfastly ignored.

He squeezed her fingers lightly and lead her to the front of the building, and through the wide bay windows she glimpsed a collection of dark wood tables and chairs, and a quite startling red paisley carpet. He opened the door for her and she stepped inside, hearing the tinkling of a bell above her. He followed her in and she looked around. Definitely more traditional, she thought.

The bar was all dark wood and brass, and beyond it she could glimpse the edge of a snooker table in the other room and hear the animated conversation of a game in mid-swing. Two old men sat in one corner, one staring into space and the other doing a crossword, and a man and woman sat at a small table near the fireplace. Save for them and a rather corpulent man with an impressive halo of wiry grey-hair who was collecting glasses from the table nearest them, they were the only occupants. He looked up at the sound of the bell over the door and beamed.

"Remus Lupin!" the man roared, straightening up and striding over to them. Tonks hoped she'd managed to turn her expression of utmost surprise that the man knew Remus' name into one of polite interest, although the alcohol she'd had that evening meant she had slightly less control over the muscles in her face than she normally did. He extended his hand to Remus and shook it enthusiastically. "Good to see you son, good to see you."

"Hello, John."

"I was talking about you not three weeks ago with old what's-her-face from the village!" he said, gesturing vaguely beyond the walls with a jerk of his thumb. Then he turned to Tonks and fixed her with an infectious grin. "And who's this?"

"This is Tonks," Remus said, touching her lightly on the small of her back. She tried not to shiver as tingles raced up her spine, did a quick u-turn and raced back down to where his hand was resting. "Tonks, this is a very old friend of mine, John Barrowman."

Tonks smiled at him. Really, it was impossible not to. He radiated warmth and welcome and she liked him immediately. It had never really occurred to her that Remus might have friends she didn't know or hadn't heard of, let alone that he'd bring her to meet them, but the fact that he had gave her stomach a new cause to flip over.

"Tonks. That's an unusual name," he said, clasping her hand in both of his warm, shovel like ones and shaking it fiercely.

"Well," she chuckled, "I'm an unusual girl."

"S'pose you'd have to be to go out with this reprobate," John said, whacking Remus affectionately on the arm. He grinned widely, and then squeezed himself back behind the bar with not inconsiderable difficulty. "What can I get you?"

"We'll have two pints of whatever you're passing off as the special this week," Remus said.

"Cheeky sod."

John shuffled down the bar and retrieved two glasses from the shelf above his head, and then began drawing the first pint of frothy dark brown liquid. "How's your mum?" he said.

"Fine, thank you," Remus said. "I'll tell her you were asking after her."

"And you're keeping alright?"

"Very well," Remus said.

"Aye, I can see that," John said, nodding in Tonks' direction as he reached for the other glass. "Staying long?"

"Flying visit, I'm afraid," Remus said. "We just popped in for one."

"Number of times I heard your dad say that and then had to carry him home," John mused. "Anyway…"

John placed the two glasses in front of them, and Remus reached for his wallet. "You can put that away," John said. Remus made as if he were about to protest, but John cut him off with a surprisingly steely glare.

"Thank you," Remus said.

Someone on the other side of the bar called over to John, and he excused himself and squeezed around the bar to serve them. Tonks eyed the frothy pint for a moment, trying to decide whether she wanted to try this intriguing concoction first or ask Remus all the questions she was dying to ask about who this man was, how his parents came into it, and what they were doing here. Thirst and the desire to rid herself of the aftertaste of the chilli vodka won out, and she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. It was bitter, but not unpleasant, reminding her a little bit of raw chestnuts.

"So what is this?" she said. Remus took a sip.

"This, if I'm not very much mistaken, is Bishop's Finger, although this week, it's masquerading as – " he checked the small brass disc on the front of the pump " – Old Hardy's."

"Masquerading as?"

Remus leaned forward conspiratorially, and lowered his voice. "If John over-orders something, or something's about to go out of date, he makes up a new name for it and calls it a special to get rid of it."

"And you'd know that because..?"

"I used to work here. It was my idea."

Tonks chuckled into the back of her hand for a little longer than his words warranted, owing to the amount of conflicting drinks circulating through her system. "Is that why he called you a reprobate?"

"Ah," Remus said. "I'm not sure how much you know about colloquialisms, but around here, 'reprobate' is actually a term of endearment."

She eyed him suspiciously for a moment. He was using his professor voice, the one he used to explain things to Harry and the others, and occasionally used on Sirius when he was being particularly annoying, but she wasn't entirely convinced. "Is that true?"

"No."

She laughed so hard at his rather unexpected honesty that she had to put her glass down. He shot her such a mischievous look that she was suddenly overtaken by the urge to grab him by the collar and drag him into a ferocious kiss. "You'd better explain yourself, then," she said, instead. "Otherwise, I'll be forced to put this together with the reckless cherry thing you told me earlier and draw the conclusion that you are, in fact, the kind of man my mother warned me about."

Remus gave her a lopsided half-smile that very nearly had her reaching for his lapels. "It wasn't my fault," he said feebly.

"Why do I get the feeling you've said that before?"

"Because for seven years it was practically my catchphrase," he said. "Let's just say that one summer I had some friends to stay, and when they left they took my good reputation with them."

"What did they do?"

"An easier question to answer would probably be, what didn't they do?" he said. "I still can't visit half the shops in the village without people threatening to set their dogs on me. And old what's-her-face? Well, she holds me personally responsible for Sirius breaking both of her daughters' hearts. He was only here for a week," he added, a note of exasperation in his voice. "The man's a menace."

As Remus went on to describe the various ways in which his so-called friends had disrupted sleepy, Norfolk village life, Tonks took in every detail. She liked the way he told the stories of his life, with warmth and wit, his eyes dancing when he amused her. It took a great deal of effort to ignore the itch of her fingers towards his collar and an urge to show him in no uncertain terms just how much she liked him.

"Would you excuse me for a minute?" he said, startling her out of some particularly pleasing images of what might happen if she stopped resisting the itch. She nodded, and leant against the bar, watching him cross the room and disappear behind a green door with smoky glass.

She was certainly having an interesting night. Remus had been all of the things she thought he would be – thoughtful, good company, and witty, and some things that she hadn't really expected at all. He'd flirted with her rather unabashedly, and he'd been a lot more fun than she thought perhaps he might be, utterly game for the rather unusual drinks she'd foist upon him and trying the things she liked, even though the loud music, cheap, fruity drinks and brash décor couldn't have been less him if they tried.

She'd very much enjoyed the opportunity to be in his world too – a world full of smoky pubs and old friends and people called old what's-her-face, and even though this wasn't the kind of place she'd normally choose to spend a Friday night, she felt oddly at home.

It really was the most ingenious idea for a night out she'd ever come across. It was as if he was slowly revealing who he was through the places he decided to take her, and the stories they inspired him to tell, and she supposed she'd done the same.

In the last couple of hours they'd gotten to know a lot of things about each other – some things, that _perhaps_, they hadn't intended to bring up – without the need for the awkward pauses and badly phrased questions she'd been afraid of, and their changing situations had meant they were never stuck for something to talk about. She smiled to herself, wondering if that's why he'd decided on it, or if it was a happy coincidence. Somehow, she suspected the former. Ingenious.

She was snatched from her thoughts by Remus squeezing her arm and the familiar fluttering sensations that the briefest contact with him was bound to cause. "Drink up," he said, with rather strained casualness. "We're leaving."

"Why?" she said. "We just got here."

"You see the man with the bald head and the red face?" Remus said, indicating who he meant with the slightest twitch of his head.

"Yes."

"Well, when I went to the gents I saw the man with the long beard groping his wife," he said, widening his eyes at her. "And so did he."

"Oh," she said.

Her eyes followed Remus' to where the bald man was advancing on the other, pinning him against the fireplace. "Come ere you little – "

"Mate, I swear I didn't know she was your – "

There was a loud smack as the first man landed a punch squarely on the other's jaw. Tonks and Remus winced in sympathy. "I think we should go," he said, but leaving was absolutely the last thing on her mind.

"Can't we stay and watch?" she said.

The bearded man looked stunned for a moment, and then barrelled into the bald one, knocking him back against the bar with an 'ouff'. Remus edged in front of her a little and she smiled at his chivalry. For a second she thought he might be about to intervene, but John appeared to have the matter in hand, effortlessly pulling the two apart by their ears and telling them to stop behaving like animals in a voice that she didn't think left any room for argument. They disagreed, the bald man making a swing for the other, and the other swinging back while the woman wailed for them to stop. Remus opened the door and John threw them unceremoniously through it and into the car park, in what seemed like a very practised manoeuvre, and the woman trailed after them.

Remus nudged her with his elbow and indicated the door with a nod of his head. "I thought you wanted to watch?" he said, with an impish raise of his eyebrows.

She grabbed her drink and followed him out into the car park.

It was a beautiful, clear, night; the sky felt lush and expansive above them, and the stars seemed to shine brighter over the farmland than they had anywhere else they'd been. The romantic overtones of a crisp, starlit night were only slightly impeded by the two grown men grunting on the gravel in front of them.

The bearded man appeared to have regained the upper hand and had the other in a head lock, and the woman was hitting him with her handbag, while John stood surveying them over his crossed arms and sighing. "I wouldn't have stayed away so long if I'd known you were laying on entertainment," Remus said, and John snorted.

"Daft buggers."

Remus set his pint down on the waist-high dry-stone wall that ran around the car park, and then hoisted himself onto it and sat down. He beckoned for her to join him, and she handed him her drink, took his proffered hand and, finding a foot-hold between two stones, hauled herself up next to him. He waited for her to get comfortable, and then handed her her pint back. "Cheers," he said, clinking his glass against hers as he gave her one of his wry, lopsided smiles that produced, as certainly as anything, a familiar twist in her stomach.

They watched the two men roll around the car park, cursing each other and barely landing a punch between them. It was ten minutes before they gave up, shook hands and went their separate ways, the bald one muttering at his wife all the way out of earshot. John went back inside, and Tonks sipped her pint, bouncing her feet off the wall.

"Interesting place," she said, watching her breath as it froze and drifted away in a tiny blue cloud.

"A little more interesting than I thought it would be to be honest," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. It occurred to her that it was the first time they'd been alone all evening, and the flurry in her stomach told her that she'd better think of a diversionary question before the alcohol in her system convinced her to do something rash.

"How did you end up working here?" she asked.

"I grew up here," he said. "You see that house?" He swivelled slightly towards her and pointed at the twinkling lights in the distance. She looked at him for a moment, taking in all the details of his face before she realised that he was probably expecting her to look where he was pointing. She snorted a half-laugh to herself and obliging swivelled. "That's where I used to live. John and my father were old friends, and when I was sixteen he gave me a summer job here, collecting glasses and washing up," he said, so close that she could feel his breath ripple across her hair.

He dropped his hand into his lap and she turned back, brushing his shoulder with hers and wondering when someone had transfigured her heart into a jar of panicking butterflies. "Fun?" she said, his close proximity having something of an effect on her ability to form long sentences or even particularly coherent thoughts.

"Washing up without magic leaves a bit to be desired fun-wise," Remus said, raising his eyebrow at her slightly, "but John used to let me sneak the odd pint, so it wasn't without its compensations."

"You must know a lot about beer," she said.

"A fair amount, I suppose," he said, drawing his eyebrows together in confusion.

"Well don't hold out on me, Remus," she said. "Surely you know that girls love nothing more than to be talked to about brewing techniques, ancient or otherwise."

Remus laughed so hard she thought he might fall off the wall. "Alas," he said, "my knowledge of brewing techniques is limited to what I've overheard, although if you want to know the best way to stack a large number of pint glasses, I'm your man."

His eyes twinkled in the light from the windows, and she wondered how on earth sitting on a dry-stone wall in the car park of a pub in the middle of nowhere, sipping the last of her masquerading beer on a cold January night could feel so romantic.

"Do your parents still live around here?" she asked.

"No," he said. "And it's just my mother these days. She lives with my aunt and her husband on the coast in Dorset. She paints watercolours of the shoreline and sells them to tourists in the summer – it's all very bohemian," he added, tilting his chin down as he looked at her.

"What about your dad?"

"He died," he said, "a few years ago."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," he said.

Tonks never really knew what to do with death. She always worried that whatever she said would be the wrong thing – but she supposed that saying nothing at all was worse than saying the wrong thing. "What was he like?" she asked tentatively. Remus gave her a reassuring smile, she supposed wanting to let her know that he didn't mind the question.

"I suppose you'd call him a raconteur," he said. "He had a story for all occasions, a smile for everyone, and he valued good manners more than almost anything else. And, as you may have guessed, he always had slightly too much to drink on special occasions – which for him could as easily be a wet Wednesday in April, here with his friends, as Christmas. He always tried to make the best of whatever life presented to him. He was a wonderful man."

"That must be where you get it from," she said.

She heard her own words and immediately wished the wall would open up and swallow her. She hadn't really meant to say it out loud. Remus looked as startled at what she'd said as she was that she'd said it.

Minutes passed, achingly slowly, and Tonks stared ruefully into her empty glass, wishing it wasn't empty so at least she'd have something to do with her hands. She told herself to look up and front it out.

Her eyes didn't respond.

When she finally found the nerve to meet his eyes, Remus was regarding her intently, his brow slightly furrowed as his eyes searched hers. He broke off into a warm smile, and then looked around the car park. "So where to next?" he said, draining his pint.

"I like it here," she said, desperately trying to sound more cool than she felt. "Why don't we stay for another one?"

"But that's against the rules," he said.

"I always say there's no point having rules if you don't break them occasionally," she said, as casually as she could muster.

"Well in that case," he said, jumping off the wall, "I'll be back in a minute."

Remus went inside to procure more drinks, and she sat, rolling her eyes at herself for putting her foot in it. Again. She was still rolling her eyes at herself when he reappeared with two short, fat glasses with amber liquid in the bottom.

"I thought you might need something to warm you up," he said, as he handed her one.

"Thanks," she said, and smiled at him.

He hoisted himself back up beside her, and she drank her whiskey, a little faster than perhaps she should have done. She took a deep breath. "About what I just said," she said. "I didn't really mean to say it out loud. Blame the booze."

He turned towards her slightly, and even though he was smiling, there was a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. "Do I have to?" he said. "People don't say that kind of thing to me very often, so if it's all the same to you, I'd rather believe that you meant it, even if you didn't."

"No, I did," she said quickly. "I just – I'm a bit embarrassed, I suppose."

"Oh," he said, softly. "There's really no need."

His eyes flickered down to where her hand was resting on her knee, and after the briefest of hesitations, he reached for it and wrapped both of his around it, before meeting her eye again and smiling. "If you're embarrassed because I have, perhaps, given you cause to doubt that the feeling is mutual," he said, squeezing her fingers gently, "I'm sorry. I can assure you that it is. Entirely."

For the first time ever, she was glad that a solid object hadn't listened to her pleas to open up and swallow her. In spite of the crinkling around his eyes and the warm humour of his voice, she knew he was serious, and the thought made her stomach shrivel up and drag all of her other organs down with it in the most delightful sinking sensation, which sent the butterflies in her chest into fluttering overdrive. She thought a couple of them might even have swooned.

"What?" she said, when she couldn't stand it any longer. "You mean we both think you're wonderful?"

"Yes," he said, with a soft laugh, "that's exactly what I meant."

He held her gaze for a moment, running his thumb over the back of her hand. "Your hands are freezing," he said.

He delved into his pocket and pulled out a pair of black, woollen gloves, un-balling them and bringing her hand a little closer, sliding one glove over her fingers and rolling it down to her wrist, and then gesturing for her other hand before doing the same. When they were both encased, he adjusted them until he was satisfied with their appearance and fit, and she was surprised at how deft and delicate his fingers were, how deliberate his movement. Watching him absorbed in a task, even such a small one, was fascinating, and she was suddenly very keenly aware of how quickly she was breathing and the fact that she was sitting so close to him that he was probably keenly aware of it too. He set her hands back down in her lap and then loosely draped his arm around her shoulders. "Better?"

"Thanks," she said quietly. She shuffled a little further into him, enjoying the warming sensation of being so close to him and grateful for the first time in a very long time for her conversational clumsiness and tendency towards drunken confessions. If they all ended up like this, she thought, she wouldn't mind at all.

"What did you do to these?" she said, wiggling her unnaturally toasty fingers at him. "Some kind of permanent warming charm?"

"Hmm," he said. "Are you sure you're not too cold? We can go back inside, if you want."

"Not just yet," she said. "I like being outside in the winter. And it's a beautiful night."

He considered her thoughtfully. "I'd have thought you were a summer person," he said softly.

"Really?" she said, surprised that he'd given her favourite season even a passing half-thought. "I love this time of year. My favourite thing in the world is when the sun sets early in winter, and the sky's all cold yellows and pale blues and that kind of frosty grey you only see at this time of year, and the trees look black against it and the first stars appear before it's dark…" She trailed off as she realised what she was saying. "Remus?" she said.

"Hmm?"

"Mission accomplished. I'm pissed."

He let out a soft breath of laughter and pulled her closer, regarding her with an amused raised eyebrow. "Do you want me to take you home?"

"I don't get to go out and get drunk very often," she said, dropping her head onto his shoulder, "so if it's all the same to you, I'd rather stay out and make the most of it."

"I've already had one descendant of the esteemed and noble House of Black throw up on me this week," he said, "I suppose I could go for the set."

"I'm not _that _drunk," she said, looking up at him from his shoulder. "I might get a bit poetic, though. If I start to tell you you've got lovely eyes you've got my permission to shove me off the wall and leave me."

"You don't think I've got lovely eyes?" he asked. There was an unusual lift in his voice, and she couldn't tell whether it was mock-concern or the real thing.

"Oh no I do," she said. "I just don't want to embarrass myself _again_ by spending the next twenty minutes describing them."

"Fair enough," he said, his voice lilting with amusement.

She nestled on his shoulder for a few minutes, enjoying the feeling of his warm, slightly scratchy, overcoat under her cheek and the smell of clean clothes and sea breeze that seemed to emanate from him. "Hmm," he murmured. She lifted her head and looked at him, so close she could see all the different colours in his eyes.

They really were lovely. From a distance they looked grey, but up close they weren't just grey at all. They had traces of a warm, old, comforting blue, like faded denim, and a silvery, pale green, like sage leaves written right through them, with flecks of nutmeg brown and even a hint of amber, and the overall effect was a bit like gazing into a crystal ball: the more she looked, the more she saw, and the more she saw, the more she wanted to look. She started to think that twenty minutes might have been an understatement.

"Hmm?" she echoed.

"I was just thinking."

"Damn," she said, with a soft laugh. "I haven't got any loose change."

He chuckled breathily and turned towards her slightly, his hand leaving her shoulder and coming to rest somewhere at the base of her spine. He fixed his eyes on hers, reaching up and brushing her hair away from her face, leaving just the briefest, whispered impression of his fingertips on her temple. The sparkle in his eyes made her breath catch in her chest and her stomach tighten. "I think you can have this one for free," he said softly as he moved closer and gently touched his lips to hers, threading his fingers into the hair behind her ear, his palm cool against the skin of her jaw.

Her eyelids fluttered closed and she leant in to him, raising her fingers to his cheek and brushing it softly as she eased his face closer. His kiss was tender and unhurried, and he gradually moved his lips over hers, his fingers tracing a path down to her neck equally slowly, as if he was savouring every second before deepening the kiss. He smelled of chilly, night air and tasted of whiskey, and he kissed her slowly but fervently, a controlled tease that made it very difficult not to whimper. The shivers through her body were nothing to do with the cold, and the sensation of light-headedness was nothing to do with the alcohol she'd drunk, and everything to do with the man whose fingers in her hair and lips on hers made her blood scream in her veins.

She never wanted the kiss to end.

But of course it did. "Your nose is cold," she said as she pulled away, biting her lips together as he came back into focus.

"So's yours," he said, smiling slightly with a rather dreamy look in his eyes.

"So," she said, "do you want another drink, or are you ready for bed?"

When his eyebrows twitched into a mischievous expression she realised what she'd said. Oh. Dear. Merlin.

"I meant – you know – to sleep – not – to – well, you know – together," she stammered. He raised an eyebrow at her and she felt her eyes widen with horror. "Not that I don't – wouldn't – just – I meant – "

"You know," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting into the beginnings of a smile, "if you'd helped me out with the cherry thing earlier, I'd be changing the subject now."

She gave him a playful shove and then buried her face in his shoulder. "Just kill me," she muttered, and he laughed.

"In answer to your question," he said, "and rising above any debate about who has the smuttiest mind, I'll leave it up to you."

She pressed her lips together in the effort of not laughing as she sat up and met his eye. "One for the road?" she said. "Why don't we go inside and I'll buy you another whiskey."

He nodded his agreement, and then slid off the wall and held out his hands to her. She took them and leapt down, staggering into him as she landed. He steadied her and smiled at her kindly. He let go of her hands, but didn't step back, instead toying with the knot in her scarf as he regarded her with shy inquisitiveness. "So how am I doing?" he said.

"What?"

"I haven't done this kind of thing for a while," he said, and a look of confusion passed over his face as his eyes left hers and he gazed into the distance. "And _apparently_ I'm drunk enough to confess it and ask how you think it's going."

"Oh," she said, smiling at his sudden, and rather unwarranted, bout of nervousness. "I'm not an expert by any means, but let's see. Two drunken confessions – three if we count this one, one fist-fight, two unintentional propositions and one pretty nifty kiss. I'd say it's going pretty well."

"Good," he said with a soft chuckle, his eyes flickering back to hers. "Now take me inside before I have the chance to say anything else."

She obliged, and they sat by the fire, slightly too close together, drinking whiskey and talking about nothing in particular as if it was the most fascinating conversation either of them had ever had. Tonks tried, and failed, to keep her drunken poetics to a minimum, and Remus smiled at her indulgently as she raved about, amongst other things, how not enough people chose bold carpets these days.

When they eventually decided it was time to leave, John made Remus promise to bring her back for Sunday lunch sometime, so he could tell her lots of embarrassing stories about him, and Remus grudgingly agreed. They ventured out into the car park and walked to the back of the pub, and then Remus offered her his arm. "Home?" he said. She took it, and they arrived almost instantly back in the corridor outside her flat.

She eyed the familiar walls with reluctance. She didn't really want him to go. She leant against the door and he rested his shoulder on the frame, loosely toying with the ends of her scarf. "Well," he said, his eyes fixed on hers even though his head was tilted down. "I have had a very lovely time, with you, this evening."

She wondered how, when there were so many ways he could say the same thing, he always managed to choose the one most likely to cause knee-buckling. "Me too," she said, her heart fluttering at his choice of words.

"You're a fun drunk," he said, smiling and stepping a little closer.

"Thank you," she said. "You too."

"It's nice of you to say, but I think you win the prize for most amusing drunken moment for your ten minute ramble about how you like fire because it's oh-so-very warm and orange."

"Ten minutes?" she said, aghast at the suggestion. "Two. At most."

"If you say so."

She flashed her best flirty smile at him. "You're only agreeing with me so I'll let you kiss me again," she said. His eyebrows shot up and darted together in surprise.

"Am I that transparent?"

"Yes."

His eyes flickered mischievously. "Can I kiss you anyway?" he said. She bit her lip and let it slide through her teeth as she smiled and glanced up at the ceiling.

"I suppose," she said.

He grinned, the same flicker of mischief still dancing in his eyes as he raised a finger, and beckoned to her to come closer. She shifted a little nearer, and he beckoned her again. She gladly obliged, moving slowly towards him until she was resting against him, her heart pounding so violently she swore he'd be able to feel it, even through all the layers of clothing between them. He gazed down at her, caught her chin with his finger and lifted it, slowly bringing his lips down to hers until she could feel his breath on her lips. But the kiss she was expecting never came.

"You suppose?" he whispered, and she could tell without looking that he was smirking. "You know, if you're not bothered – "

"I don't know how much you know about colloquialisms," she said, sliding her hands up his chest and clasping them around his neck, "but around here, 'I suppose' actually means 'hell, yes'."

"Is that right?" he said, winding his arms around her waist and pulling her closer.

"No," she said, biting her lip against a snigger. "Kiss me anyway."

He hummed in consideration for a moment, and then lowered his lips to hers, teasing them apart slowly and kissing her with a subtle intensity that became more intense and considerably less subtle as the minutes passed. She slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and he shivered, responding by sliding his hand up her back and into her hair, pulling her closer as he pressed her gently back against the door. It was a rather more passionate kiss than any of the others they'd shared before, and she almost dissolved at the sensation of it, feeling breathless and tingly and a little bit like there'd been some kind of cave-in in her stomach.

As he gradually brought the kiss to an end and pulled away, she bit her lip and smiled at him. Kissing Remus was fast becoming her favourite pastime. She fiddled with one of the buttons on his coat and glanced up at him.

"There is one thing I've been wondering," she said.

"What?"

She gave him a playful smile, and then lightly poked him in the ribs. "Virginity. Recklessness. Spill."

He sighed, closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in a brief wince and then gave her a smile of grudging acquiescence. "Her name was Lucidia Jones," he said, quietly, "and she was – she was – " he glanced up at the ceiling, frowning slightly, " – well, even Sirius said she was a tart, although I always maintained that she was just friendly, and people misinterpreted it. We did it in the broom cupboard on the fourth floor – which, if you never tried it," he said, raising an eyebrow at her, "I can't say I recommend."

"Hmm," she said, her voice rather higher in pitch then normal with the effort of suppressing a snigger at the thought of Remus doing anything other than storing a broom in a broom cupboard. "Stray handles and polish in places polish has no business being aside, I'm not sure how that qualifies as reckless."

"I didn't – er – know her very well," he said, rather reluctantly, peering at her through his fringe rather awkwardly before giving in to a schoolboy grin. "She ruthlessly seduced me, toyed with me for two weeks and then dumped me, supposedly to concentrate on her school work."

"Supposedly?"

"The next day I caught her in the same broom cupboard studying something _I'd_ certainly never seen on the syllabus with Arthur Wainwright." Tonks' hand flew to her mouth and she tried desperately not to laugh. "I put them both in detention and she accused me of being petty, hypocritical and jealous," he said, with a slight nod. "Which, of course, I was."

He allowed her to titter for a few minutes, and then fixed her with an amused gaze. "Now open wide."

"As seduction techniques go, Remus," she said, "that leaves a little to be desired. Did Lucidia Jones teach you _nothing_?"

He raised an eyebrow at her and then held up his hand, where he had a tube of something labelled '_Morning-After Misery Mintimisers_' clutched. "The secret of your cousin's success," he said. "I took the precaution of borrowing them this morning – well, I suppose stealing might be a better word, since I've no intention of giving them back. It'll do him good to wake up with a sore head for once."

Tonks grinned and then obligingly opened her mouth. He placed a small powdery mint on her tongue, before tossing one into his own mouth, and they stood unable to speak for a few moments while the mints fizzed quite pleasantly before disintegrating altogether. "Was he completely unbearable today?" she said.

"I daresay he would have been if he'd known what I was doing tonight," he said.

"You didn't tell him?"

"No," he said. "Unfortunately, at about seven o'clock this evening I was forced to retire with a very bad headache and a good book."

He smiled gently, his eyes sincere and rather more serious than she'd come to expect as he placed the lightest of touches on her arm. "I just wanted to go out with you once without him interfering," he said quietly.

"How do you know he will?"

"Bitter experience," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "How do you think I ended up with a girl like Lucidia Jones in the first place?"

"I thought you said he thought she was a tart?"

"He did," he said, a note of resignation in his voice, "and as such, he thought she was the perfect person to – er – take me in hand. For a while I thought he'd persuaded her to do it, but apparently all he did was tell her I was interested and let her do the rest. While he, of course, watched, sniggering, from a distance."

She eyed him with barely concealed amusement. "Why are you still friends with him?"

"I ask myself the same thing frequently," he sighed, before fixing his eyes on hers. "I'll tell him next time."

"You think there'll be a next time, do you?"

"I have no thoughts on the subject," he said, and then smiled, "only hopes." He glanced up at the ceiling in thought for a moment. "Possibly vain ones now you know about one of my most shameful romantic debacles."

She was momentarily torn between thinking how adorable he looked and the natural curiosity he'd just, probably quite unintentionally, piqued. "One of?" she said.

"I'd be lying if I said it was the only one, or even the worst," he said, smiling rather coyly.

She bit her lip against a grin. "Well," she said, "that sounds like fun."

"What does?"

"Going out again and prising all of your deep, dark, secrets out of you."

"Hmm," he said, his eyes twinkling, "does it?"

"Not so much for you, perhaps."

"No," he sighed, rolling his eyes in half-hearted agreement.

They looked at each other for what seemed like an age, each fighting the twitching of a grin in their cheeks. "Well, it's late," he said eventually, brushing her hair away from her face as he moved closer. "I'd better go."

She hummed her agreement against his lips as he softly kissed her goodnight.

Tonks gave in to the pull of alcohol and flopped down onto her bed without even bothering to take her clothes off. She stared at the ceiling, grinning, for a moment before curling up on her side and hugging her pillow, thinking that it made a rather second-rate Remus substitute. She wrapped the duvet around herself a little half-heartedly, and her thoughts swirled around her, nothing but a string of delicious sensations, vivid colours and fuzzy feelings. Odd snatches of the conversations they'd had mingled with the pleasant drunken haze, resulting in a warm, glowing sensation in her stomach not that dissimilar to being hit with a dozen cheering charms.

As first dates went, she thought, it had been pretty damn near perfect.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - I've been kind of bowled over by the response so far and I hope at least some of you managed to make it to the end of this one.**

**Can I interest anyone in a date with a fan fic Remus of their choice in return for a review? **

**No? Thought not ; )**


	5. Chess, Caterpillars and Cat Bells

Tonks sat at her desk, staring at the clock. For the last hour the longest hand seemed to have been moving in slow motion and she wasn't sure it had moved at all in the last ten minutes, which as far as it was concerned, was no time at all. Stupid clock.

She turned back to the pile of paperwork she'd been tackling all day and pulled a file from the tower, thumbing through it unenthusiastically. She'd hoped at least to have a some Dark activity to investigate, but, as far as the Ministry was concerned at least, it was one of the dullest Saturdays in history. Not that, of course, she hadn't made use of the opportunity to make a nuisance of herself on behalf of the Order. She kicked her bag full of copied files disguised as back issues of i _Witch Weekly /i _ a little further under the desk, wishing that she'd taken her time a bit more and had something interesting to do to pass the remaining time.

She toyed with a paperclip and wondered what Remus was doing. She'd had the most wonderful time with him, and she supposed it had been a good job that nothing serious had happened today since she'd only been up to half-focusing on anything since she got up. The fuzzy warm feeling in her stomach hadn't dissipated, and thinking about what had caused it was enough to keep anybody's mind off trawling through dryly written reports on new techniques in avoiding detection spells.

When the clock eventually struck seven she felt like cheering. Thinking about Remus was fun, but after eight hours, she was more interested in seeing him than thinking about him. She hurriedly grabbed her things and rushed to the Apparation point.

She found Remus in the Grimmauld Place library, on the sofa by the fire, staring intently at a chess board on the low table between him and an empty armchair. Her heart leapt into life. She ran a hand through her long purple hair and straightened her green cardigan, toying nervously with a button before deciding she should probably say something before he noticed her staring at him like an exhibit in a Muggle zoo. She took a deep breath to still the fluttering. It was semi-successful, which seemed like progress.

"Playing yourself at chess, now?" she said. He looked up and smiled, and she sank down next to him on the sofa, surveying the board just so she had something to do with her eyes and mind.

"Ron's beating me," Remus said, rather sadly. "I made a foolish mistake early on and he's shown me no mercy. He's just nipped out for another bowl of Molly's trifle before he finishes me off."

"I always imagined you'd be good at chess."

"I used to fancy myself the Grand Master of the Gryffindor common room," he said ruefully. "But I fear that title now belongs to a younger man."

"You know all's not lost," she said.

"He's beaten me eight times on the trot," he said, with a half-smile that undid all the good work of her deep breath. "I think I've ceded the title."

"You still might be able to win this one," she said, leaning forward.

Remus' eyes followed hers to the board. "If you moved your knight there," she said, tapping the square lightly and trying not to upset any of his pieces, who looked up at her forlornly from the board, "he'd think you were sacrificing it as a last ditch, and then you'd be in a position to check him if you did – " she indicated the square he should move his bishop to " – that."

Remus frowned at the board, and then looked up with barely concealed surprise. "I'm more cunning than I look," she said, and he gave her a heart-stopping smile.

He leant back into the sofa, turning his face towards her, his hands clasped in his lap. "How are you, anyway?" he asked quietly, his eyes smiling. "No ill-effects after last night, I take it?"

"Right as rain," she said. "Those mints should be the eighth wonder of the wizarding world."

Inexplicably she found herself staring at his lips, wondering how long it would take Ron to get a bowl of trifle from the kitchen and if, perhaps, she had time to kiss Remus before he got back. She tried to push the thought aside, thinking that it would probably be pretty traumatic for Ron to see two people he considered grown up and past that kind of thing snogging on the sofa. "You?"

"Chess humiliation aside," he said dryly. "Have you been at work all day?"

"Yep."

"How was it?"

"Boring. Made myself useful pilfering some more files," she said, nudging her bag with her foot, unwilling to draw her eyes from his for even a second. "How's Arthur?"

"Looking a bit better," he said, and his eyes sparkled with something that had nothing at all to do with the improvement in Arthur's condition.

Suddenly it occurred to her that they were having two entirely separate conversations: one with actual words about their day, and another, altogether more exciting one, with their eyes.

She supposed that this was how things would be between them. They'd still have to have conversations about Death Eaters and missing people and missions – be sensible and tactical and rational, whatever feelings were stirring inside them. It was almost as if they'd both have to be two different people – one for the Order and another for themselves. They were friends and colleagues, as well as people who occasionally went out and pinned each other to doorframes and kissed each other breathless. She wondered if it was going to be weird. Before she could even properly finish thinking the thought, the question had left her lips.

"Do you think this is going to be odd?" she asked.

"Do I think what's going to be odd?" he said, looking a little bewildered at her sudden change of conversational direction.

"This," she said, gesturing between them. He gave her a look that said she hadn't really made things clearer, and she took a deep breath and tried to force her mind to come up with an explanation.

She supposed at the heart of it was that normally, when she went out with someone for the first time, she didn't see him the next day playing chess in the place she half-heartedly called home. "Well," she started. "Normally, when you go out with someone you don't have to see them until you go out again – if you go out again –"

"Ah, I see," he said. "But we have to see each other all the time."

"Which might be odd."

He thought about it for a moment. "I don't think it has to be," he said, softly. "But I know what you mean. Things between us aren't as clear cut as perhaps they might be."

"That's kind of what I meant," she said, wondering why she hadn't thought to say it like that – in a way that actually made sense. "I'm not entirely sure what the rules for this are."

"Oh well I wouldn't worry about rules," he said, his eyes glimmering with mischief. "I'd only break them anyway."

She smiled at him, wondering how he always managed to say the right thing; more specifically, how he managed to say the right thing and flirt with her at the same time. "What are we going to do, then?" she said.

"Make it up as we go along?" he offered.

"Make it up as we go along?"

"Got us this far, didn't it?"

She liked his plan. "What if one of us decides we don't want to, you know, go out again, at some point?" she said, pressing the point more because she wanted to hear what he'd say than know the answer. He raised his eyebrows at her with a look of anxious hopefulness.

"Just for reference," he said, "what's the likelihood of that?"

"At the moment, somewhere between slim and not at all," she said, smiling. "But who says you won't decide you don't want to go out with me again?

"I don't think that's very likely."

"Don't be so sure," she said. "I can be very annoying."

He shot her a look of amused disagreement, and her internal organs shrank together and shivered. "Well, if that happens," he said, a smile tugging one corner of his mouth upwards, "whenever we're forced to spend time alone together, we'll pass it in uncomfortable silence. We'll glare our way through meetings as we sit, plotting harmful and despicable things to do to each other in revenge."

She was about to say that that sounded like fun when Ron came back in, a bowl clutched in one hand and his mouth already full. "Wotcher, Ron," Tonks said, sitting up a little straighter. "I see you're giving Remus here a run for his money."

Ron swallowed. "Not really," he said. "It's mostly luck. Your move, isn't it?"

"Yes," Remus said, with a slight sigh. He left his knight where it was, instead opting to move his bishop in what all three of them, and the bishop, knew was a fatal move. She was quietly impressed with his sense of fair play. She didn't think his bishop was. "Go on then," he said with amused resignation. "Finish me off."

Ron grinned sheepishly as his queen advanced on his command. "Checkmate," he said.

"Well, Ron," Remus said. "I think that makes you the official Grimmauld Place chess champion. Well played."

"Another game?" Ron said.

"Not for me, I don't think," he mused, a warm smile playing on his lips. "Tonks might provide you with some real opposition, though."

"What are you going to do?"

"I thought I might slink off to the kitchen for a bowl of trifle to sulk into. Can I fetch you some?" he said, getting to his feet and meeting her eye. "Sulking into it, is, of course, optional," he added, twitching his eyebrows at her.

She smiled at him and nodded, and while he went to the kitchen, Ron reset the board and they chatted about Arthur's recovery and when he was expected home.

By the time Remus returned, Tonks had slid into his seat and she and Ron were a few moves into the game. The bishop she'd inherited from Remus was still a little truculent. She took the bowl Remus offered her, and he settled down next to her, extracting i _The Daily Prophet /i _ from underneath his arm and spreading it across his knees to read.

Perhaps it was the ordinariness of trifle, chess and newspapers, but suddenly, things didn't seem odd at all.

Ron put up a spirited defence, but even with the twin distractions of Remus and trifle, and a bishop that took a great deal of persuasion to do anything at all, it only took her an hour to beat Ron, and after making her promise him a re-match, he loped upstairs to join Harry and Hermione, leaving her and Remus alone.

Alone apart from the butterflies in her chest, that was. The ordinary non-weirdness of their situation did nothing to quell the Remus-inspired fluttering.

Remus was frowning at the crossword as he bounced his quill on his chin. She was pretty sure he'd been staring at the same clue for twenty minutes. "Are you stuck?" she said. His lip twitched with suppressed amusement.

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"Yes," he said, folding the paper in half, setting it on his lap and swivelling towards her to give her his full attention. "You're quite a chess player."

"Not really."

"There's no need to be modest," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "I think Ron enjoyed having some real competition for once. For most of this evening I rather got the feeling he was toying with me."

She sank further into the sofa, resting her head on the back of it and running a loose thread through her fingers. "I was impressed that you didn't use the move I showed you," she said.

"That would have been a rather hollow victory," he said.

"Hollower than losing nine times in a row to a boy less than half your age?"

"Well when you put it like that," he said, letting out a soft chuckle.

Tonks craned her neck to read the crossword on his lap. "Oh," she said, pointing to the clue, "that one's –"

Remus held up his hand. "Please don't continue," he said. "My manly pride has taken enough of a beating this evening. I really couldn't bear it."

Tonks pressed her lips together to suppress a laugh, and his eyes twinkled in the firelight. "So, if crosswords and chess are both off the agenda," she said, in a soft, flirty tone, "what on earth are we going to talk about?"

"The weather?" Remus offered.

"I think you can do better than that," she said.

"Not when you put me on the spot," he said, "and especially when I'm already in a fragile emotional state, having been intellectually defeated by a boy, as you kindly pointed out, less than half my age and, of all things, i _The Daily Prophet /i _."

He gazed at her mock-dejectedly, and her insides collapsed. "Will it make you feel better if I make you some cocoa?" she said, wondering if he knew he was being irresistibly adorable.

"I daresay it might help take the edge off," he said.

"Come on, then," she said, nudging him with her elbow.

He collected their empty bowls and followed her down to the kitchen, where he washed up and then leant against the table while she attempted to boil some milk. She handed him the files she'd copied and they chatted about what useful information might be in them as she stirred the milk, desperately trying not to spill more onto the stove than was inevitable.

He stowed the files in the dresser to peruse tomorrow, carefully locking the drawer and claiming that he was evidently far too stupid today to be of any use. She poured the milk onto the cocoa powder in two mugs, giving them a quick stir with her wand before dropping a couple of marshmallows into them. She handed one to Remus, and he thanked her and smiled, and then peered intently into his mug.

"What's that?" he said, prodding the marshmallow with his finger.

"It's a marshmallow," Tonks said, easing herself onto the table and sitting cross-legged next to him.

"A what?"

"A marshmallow."

"Any reason I'd want one in my cocoa?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"It's a Muggle sweet," she said. "I think Hermione brought them because her parents won't let her have them at home. You can roast them on a fire or melt them in drinks. They're nice," she said.

He prodded it again, a slight crease of concern between his eyebrows. "Just leave it to melt," she said, batting his hand away. "I promise you'll like it."

"As much as I liked the things you made me drink yesterday?"

"You know, you're very unadventurous," she said, and he fixed her with a look that was so unmistakeably flirtatious it seared right through her.

"Only when it comes to food," he retorted.

She widened her eyes at him in surprise that he would say such a thing, letting out a breath of laughter as she did, and then looked away, grinning at the thought. "What?" he said, his face fixed into a studiedly innocent expression.

"Nothing," she said, her voice a little high-pitched with the effort of not laughing.

"I was, of course, referring to my penchant for avant-garde literature and…." He trailed off and his gaze roamed the kitchen.

"And?" she prompted.

"All right," he said, with a note of irritation at himself. "I can't think of anything else that I might feasibly be able to claim adventurous tastes in."

"Art? Sport?" she said.

"Yes, either of those would have done nicely," he said, meeting her eyes briefly and smiling into his mug as he took a sip.

"How's the marshmallow?" she asked, warming her hands on her mug as she rested it on her knee, trying desperately not to think about Remus and the word 'adventurous' for fear that she might give in to the urge to drag him upstairs and make him prove it.

"Better than anything you inflicted on me last night."

"They weren't that bad."

"Not that bad?" he said, aghast. "That Nana Colada will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life."

"For the appalling taste or the thing it forced you to tell me?"

"Either. Both."

She glanced up at him to find him smiling sheepishly. "So what's it going to take to prise the rest of your deep, dark, secrets out of you?" she said. She'd forgotten how much she liked flirting with him over cocoa. "Do you have a favourite method of information extraction?"

"I'm a pretty big fan of coercion," he said slowly, setting his mug down on the table behind him. "I might be willing to take a bribe."

"Interesting."

He turned to face her slightly, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "Or I'd gladly fall into a honey trap," he said, tilting his head so that it was more or less level with hers, meeting her eyes with another intensely flirtatious glint in his eye.

"What's a honey trap?"

"Look it up," he said, as he broke into a grin, one eyebrow twitching up. "Then slap me."

She returned his grin, moving towards him slightly. "Another interesting answer," she said, her voice little more than a whisper, her heart beating a rather unnatural rhythm on the inside of her ribcage at around twice its normal speed.

"Well," he said, leaning towards her. "I try."

He'd barely finished forming the word when he captured her lips in a soft kiss.

"You're right," he murmured, smiling against her lips. "This is odd."

"Funny," she whispered breathily. "I was just thinking the exact opposite thing."

"Really?"

"Hmm."

"Well, then…"

He pressed his lips back to hers, kissing her slowly and winding his fingers into her hair, leaving her feeling like nothing but a mass of tingling sensations and fluttering. He tasted deliciously chocolaty as she explored his mouth, and she half-heartedly wondered if it was him or the chocolate that was making her feel particularly light-headed.

The door opened with a vague clunk and reluctantly they moved apart. She peered over his shoulder to see who had caught them in the act, and then winced. Suddenly, emotionally scarring Ron for life seemed like the lesser of two evils.

"Well well," Sirius said, his smirk evident in his voice. Remus closed his eyes briefly and sighed. She wondered if they might be having the same thought.

"At it again? Have you people no restraint?" Sirius said, dropping into a chair. "Why does it feel like every time I walk into a room you two are – " Sirius trailed off, and she turned to see why, noticing that a thin red collar had appeared around his neck. His hands flew to his throat and as he touched it, it jingled. "What the – "

"It's a cat bell," Remus said. "Now we'll be able to hear you coming." He raised an eyebrow at her, smiling slightly guiltily.

"Very funny."

"I thought so."

Remus stood up and pulled out a chair for her, and she got up off the table and sank into it, shooting her cousin an annoyed look across the table from behind her mug of cocoa. Remus drew out the chair next to her and slid into it, reaching for his mug, raising it slowly to his lips, and shooting Sirius an equally ticked-off look.

Sirius didn't notice either. He was far too occupied with spinning the collar around on his neck and trying to find the fastening. "How do I – will you just take it off?" he said.

"You're supposed to be the genius, Black," Remus said, leaning back in his chair and smirking slightly over the rim of his mug. "Take it off yourself."

"I – can't," Sirius said, sliding his fingers inside the collar and pawing at it, reminding her so much of her grandmother's cat and his detested flea collar that she had to stifle a laugh. "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing," Remus said. It wasn't remotely convincing, and she had to admit she was quite impressed. She hadn't even seen him reach for his wand.

"I'm warning you Moony…."

"What are you going to do?" he said. "Tinkle at me?"

Sirius shot Remus a glare that would ordinarily have peeled paint, but was rendered rather ineffectual by the tinkling of the bell around his neck as he moved. "Take it off."

"What's the magic word?"

"If you don't I'll – "

Tonks suspected they weren't the magic words.

Remus gave his wand the faintest of twitches in Sirius' direction and a small gold tag appeared on his collar. Tonks squinted at it to find that it bore the words: i _Hello, my name is Sirius. If found, please take me to a vet and have me neutered. /i _

She roared with laughter. Sirius felt the tag on the collar and glowered. "What have you done?" he said. Remus conjured a mirror and slid it across the table towards him, before leaning back in his chair and resting his head on his hand, lightly drumming his cheek with his long fingers. Sirius lifted the mirror reluctantly and checked his reflection before tossing it back onto the table. "Bastard."

He glared at Remus, and Remus eyed him evenly until Sirius got bored with glaring and huffily folded his arms, with the faintest of tinkles as he moved.

"Are you ever going to take Tonks out, or are you just going to pounce on her when no-one's looking?" Sirius said petulantly. "Because I should warn you that, as her cousin, I think I'm going to have to frown on that sort of thing."

"Who says I haven't?"

"Haven't what?"

"Taken her out."

"When did you – "

"Last night."

"You said you had a headache!" Sirius said, his voice rife with indignation.

Remus' bottom lip twitched in amusement. "I lied," he said, setting his mug down on the table.

"Of all the sneaky, under-hand, devious, conniving – " Sirius said. He looked momentarily appalled, and then dissolved into a grin. "I'm not sure I haven't been a bad influence on you, Moony."

"No arguments on that point."

Sirius turned his attention to Tonks, leaning towards her conspiratorially. "Did he at least take you somewhere nice?" he asked. She tried not to laugh at the jingling that was completely at odds with the rather serious tone her cousin had adopted.

"Yes."

"And you had a reasonable amount of fun? As much as you can have with someone like him, at any rate?" he asked, jerking his head in Remus' direction

"Yes," Tonks said, feeling a slight stab of indignation on Remus' behalf.

"I take it from the display I witnessed before that you'll be doing it again?"

She shot Remus a questioning glance, and he raised an eyebrow at her wearily. "Yes," she said.

"He didn't, you know, try anything on, did he?"

"Am I invisible?" Remus said, looking rather aghast at the suggestion.

"Be quiet," Sirius said, shooting him the briefest of amused glances before leaning back to her and continuing. "If he does, you know, try anything inappropriate, don't bother trying to get him with anything that hurts – he's got a stupidly high pain threshold. You'd be better off going for a tickling charm because he's ridiculously sensitive to them. And he's scared of caterpillars," he added as an afterthought.

"I am not."

There was a small flash of light and a fat green caterpillar appeared on the table. Remus leapt in surprise and shot back in his chair, clutching his hands together under his chin and eyeing the caterpillar with an amount of fear in his eyes that most people would reserve for a manticore.

"All right, I am," he said, his voice quivering as he shivered with disgust. He cringed as the caterpillar lifted its head and looked at him with what she fancied was a bemused expression. Sirius let out a bark of laughter and waved his wand, and the caterpillar disappeared.

"How can you be scared of caterpillars?" she asked. Remus glanced at her briefly before going back to eyeing the place the caterpillar had been with distaste.

"I know it's pathetic," he said, relaxing a little into his chair. "And I know I'm about a million times its size and they don't even eat humans, but – I don't know. They're just so – so – " he shivered again, " – green."

"What about the black and yellow ones?" she asked.

"Oh don't even get him started on the black and yellow ones," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "So if he tries anything inappropriate," he added, tapping the side of his nose, and then pointing at her, "you know what to do."

"I confess I never thought I'd see the day that Sirius Black, of all people, would give someone advice about what to do if i _I /i _ was inappropriate," Remus said.

"Well, Moony," Sirius said, "this is what happens when you start making advances on a man's cousin."

Remus sighed and dropped his head onto his hand, looking at her through a thin veil of his hair. "Oh and that reminds me," Sirius said. "Don't fall for his sweet and innocent act." Remus straightened up in his chair and spluttered a breathy protest that didn't include any actual words. "He's just as bad as the next man."

"Stand me next to any normal man and I'd be hard pressed to argue," he said, "but since the man next to me presently is you…."

Sirius considered him with thoughtful irritation. "You know, I don't think you're really all that suitable for Tonks."

"Don't you," Remus said, his tone not at all surprised.

"Aren't you going to ask why not?"

"No."

Sirius' lips pursed in annoyance. "How about you, Tonks?" he said. "Can I interest you in a list of Moony's unsuitabilities? Well, I say unsuitabilities, all I've really got is a list of various past indiscretions."

"Various indiscretions?" Remus said incredulously. "I'm not sure I've ever done anything that qualifies. You, on the other hand, I could probably write a book about."

"You're no better than I am."

Remus raised his eyebrow at Sirius and fixed him with an arch stare. "We both know that's not true," he said, his voice lifting with amusement.

Sirius glared. "Susan Dixon," he said, raising his eyebrow in challenge.

Remus sighed. "Elsa Whitmore," Sirius continued.

"Really, Sirius. I have no desire to descend to your level."

"Hattie Partridge."

"If you're trying to provoke me – "

"Lucidia Jones."

" – that'll do it. Aurora Hemingway."

"You said you weren't going to descend to my level!" Sirius said, outraged.

"I said I had no desire to. I didn't say I wouldn't. Tracy Hayes. Belinda Hawkins."

"Heather Noonan."

Remus' jaw tightened, and Tonks was left with the feeling that Sirius might have just stepped over some line only they knew existed. "Amelia Aldridge. Bryony Claypole. Roxanne Chapman. i _Concurrently /i _," Remus said in retaliation.

Even though she had no idea who or what they were talking about, it was as fascinating as watching any duel. Sirius writhed uncomfortably in his seat, furrowing his brow in fierce thought.

"That blonde from the Hog's Head you spent the weekend with whose name you can't even remember," he retorted. Tonks started.

" i _That /i _ was you," Remus said slowly, placing both elbows on the table and leaning on his hands.

"I know," Sirius said, smirking. "I ran out of women you'd treated appallingly. Not my fault you're so boring."

Tonks breathed a sigh of relief that whatever else he might have done, Remus hadn't forgotten the name of some blonde from the Hog's Head he'd spent the weekend with. She also mentally catalogued the names. It had certainly been an interesting exchange, deep, dark secret-wise. She'd thought she'd have to take Remus out, ply him with alcohol and hit him with some of her best Auror interrogation techniques to extract anything else. She smiled at the thought that she should have known Sirius could be relied upon to give the information up without a fight.

"Are you sure you don't want to go on?" Remus said, a brief smile playing on his lips as he pressed his fingertips together. "There's a couple you've forgotten, and I'm sure Tonks would love to hear how you got that scar on your chin in return."

"The one he got duelling half a dozen Dark wizards?" Tonks said.

"Duelling half a dozen Dark wizards, Sirius?" Remus said, raising an eyebrow and bouncing his fingers off his chin. "Funny, that's not i _quite /i _ how I remember it. The way I remember it you were – "

The air around Sirius almost crackled with annoyance. "You promised me i _faithfully /i _ that what happened between me and Rebecca Hammond would stay between you, me and Rebecca Hammond," Sirius said, dangerously quietly.

"And it will," Remus said, equally quietly. "If you play nicely."

Sirius threw himself back in his chair and his bell jingled. "You see what he's like?" he said, peering down with utmost annoyance at his neck. "He's petty and vindictive and malicious and he always remembers every single little detail…. And I should tell you that he's horrible to share a bed with. He does that thing dogs do in their sleep when they're dreaming about chasing something. It's very annoying."

"Are you quite finished?" Remus said.

"No," Sirius said. "He hogs the covers. He's probably a very selfish lover."

Tonks' hand flew to cover her mouth in a desperate attempt to stifle her startled laughter. Sirius' deadpan expression disappeared almost immediately. "Ah!" he said squirming in his seat and scratching at his shirt, baring his teeth in anguish. He let out a high-pitched moan, swatting himself on the back. "Oh bloody hell!"

"What?" Tonks said.

"He's – ah – he's given me fleas."

Remus met her eye and raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes I like to work with a theme," he said, pocketing his wand. Tonks barely held in a laugh.

"Y'see?" Sirius said, increasingly agitated, the bell at his neck tinkling as he frantically scratched. "You see what he's really like, what I have to put up with? I hope you know what you're getting into. James and I had the reputation as trouble-makers – but he's – he's – oh bloody hell!"

After a bout of intense scratching, Sirius glared. The look quickly dissipated as he scratched his thigh vigorously. Tonks threw her head back and laughed so hard she thought she might cry. "Well," Remus said, getting to his feet. "I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for the wholesale character assassination, and bid you goodnight."

"You can't leave me like this!"

"Can't I?"

"All right," Sirius said, scratching frantically behind his ear. "You're not unsuitable."

Remus sat down again. "And?"

"You're not i _that /i _ vindictive."

"And?"

"And what?" Sirius said. "You can be petty! And if this isn't malicious, I don't know what is!"

"Not that," Remus said, pressing his fingertips into his forehead.

"All your indiscretions were perfectly understandable?" Sirius offered, clawing at his arm.

"Or that."

"Oh," Sirius said. "The thing I said about what you're like in bed probably isn't true. Although you do hog the covers."

Remus leant back in his chair, apparently satisfied with Sirius' answer. "Thank you. Now say the magic word," he said.

"Which one do you want?" Sirius said desperately as he scratched his stomach. "Sorry? Please? Thanks?"

"I suppose that'll do," Remus said, and with the briefest flick of his wand, the collar and the fleas were gone. Sirius relaxed, took a few deep breaths and scratched half-heartedly at his arm.

"You used to be such a nice boy. I really have lead you astray, haven't I?" Sirius said.

"I believe the phrase is: taught me everything I know."

Sirius leant back in his chair and regarded his friend with something like pride in his eyes. He grinned at him for a moment. "You know, I've been thinking – "

"Don't," Remus said, holding up his hand and stopping Sirius in his tracks.

"Why not?"

"Because coming from you, 'I've been thinking' is the most terrifying phrase in the English language. Every time you say the words 'I've been thinking', I end up regretting it."

"Well I don't see how you'll end up regretting this."

"You never do," Remus muttered. "That's what causes all the problems."

Sirius sighed. "Do you think I should talk to Harry about girls?" he said.

"I think you should be expressly forbidden from talking to Harry about girls," Remus said. "In fact, I think you should be expressly forbidden from talking."

"I'm serious."

"What makes you think I'm not?" Remus said, raising his eyebrow at him.

"Do you really think he's interested in girls?" Tonks said.

"You think Harry's gay?" Sirius said, his eyebrows knocking into each other with concern.

"No," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "I meant with everything that's going on. Don't you think he's got a bit too much on his mind to be worrying about that sort of thing?"

Remus and Sirius exchanged a rather amused look. "Ahh, that's sweet," Sirius said, wrinkling his nose at her and leaning back in his chair. "So naïve."

Remus tilted his head towards her. "It's physically impossible for a fifteen year old boy to have enough on his mind that it stops him thinking about girls," he said.

"Take Moony, here, for example," Sirius said, leaning further back in his chair. "You'd have thought, what with his prefect duties, turning into a blood-thirsty monster every month and swatting for his OWLs every other second, if anyone'd be too busy, it was him. But no. He still found a good eighteen hours a day to mope over – what was her name? That shy girl with the long dark hair you were obsessed with?"

Remus cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. "Olivia," he said. "Olivia Crosby. And I wouldn't say obsessed."

"I know i _you /i _ wouldn't," Sirius said, with a sly grin. "But you're not telling the story, are you?" His eyes flickered to Tonks'. "He had a massive crush on her – whenever she got within about ten feet of him he lost the ability to form coherent sentences, went bright red and had to leave. A lot of people thought he had a medical condition."

Remus sighed and scratched the top of his head, looking rather resigned to his embarrassment. "That's who you meant, wasn't it?" Sirius said. "When you said I'd forgotten somebody."

"Yes."

"Anybody else?"

"No-one you know about."

"Oh well isn't that an interesting answer?" Sirius said, folding his arms across his chest and regarding Remus with amusement. "Have you been holding out on me, Moony?"

"Don't I always?"

They stared at each other across the table and the minutes passed. "I'm waiting," Sirius said.

"Then I suggest you get comfortable."

Sirius forced his lips together against a laugh. "You'll tell me eventually," he said. "You always do. I still think I should talk to Harry."

"And pass on which pearls of wisdom, exactly?" Remus said. "That if you're going to send more than one girl flowers charmed to sing their name on Valentine's Day, you'd better send the right bouquet to the right girl? That no good ever comes of trying to go out with more than one person from the same family at the same time? That it's very easy to accidentally poison yourself when you're illegally brewing a lust potion?"

"I know other stuff," Sirius said, shaking his head dramatically. Remus raised an eyebrow at him.

"Nothing he needs to hear."

"I suppose you're the expert these days?" Sirius said dismissively. "I probably had more sex in Azkaban than you did on the outside."

"Well that's a matter for you and your conscience," Remus said dryly, "and, quite frankly, something I would very much like never to hear any more about ever again."

Sirius smirked and eyed them both across the table for a moment before getting to his feet. He went over to the pantry and rooted around for a moment until he found what he was looking for, a green glass bottle that was half-full of something she thought might well be gin. "Well," he said, gesturing to the bottle. "I only came down for this. I think I'll leave you two to it."

He was almost out of the door when a thought occurred to him. "Please don't do anything unsavoury on my kitchen table."

As the door closed behind him, Remus shut his eyes and pressed his fingertips into the corner of his eye sockets, sighing. "How long is he going to keep this up?" Tonks said.

"Oh that?" Remus said. "Telling you the name of all my ex-girlfriends, insinuating I'm rubbish in bed and disclosing one of my most irrational fears? That was nothing."

Tonks looked at him rather incredulously. He massaged his temple with his fingertips and met her gaze with a weary expression. "He'll be worse when Harry and the others go back to school," he said. "He'll need a distraction, and I'm afraid I rather think I might be it."

"So what's the plan?"

"Turn him in?" Remus offered. "Split the reward?"

She tittered and he stopped massaging his temple and took a breath. "For now, though, I thought I'd make you another drink and wait for you to tell me you want nothing more to do with me," he said, getting to his feet and smiling at her pleasantly. "Cocoa?"

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (especially to Emma, for giving me the image of Remus chained to a radiator, which may or may not appear in a future instalment). **

**As an incentive to leave a word or two about this one, I thought I'd offer you the chance to terrify Remus with a caterpillar and make him do whatever you want…put some shelves up for you, make you dinner, do the washing up, that kind of thing ; )**

**Incidentally, the next chapter follows on directly from this, and if Remus thinks he's got away with the list of girls names, he's got another think coming….**


	6. Flames

Remus busied himself making cocoa for both of them, and Tonks sat, watching him and thinking. Sirius' attempts to embarrass him had certainly been relentless, and she knew that what she probably _should_ do was not mention any of the things Sirius had brought up to spare his blushes. Unfortunately for Remus, doing what she should had never exactly been her speciality.

"Do you want to go back up to the library where it's warmer?" he asked as he handed her her 'I Hate Work' mug. She agreed and followed him upstairs, thinking that if she was going to interrogate him about his ex-girlfriends, she might as well be comfortable.

The library was one of the least unpleasant of the Grimmauld Place rooms, she suspected because Remus liked to spend time there and had made a special effort in cleaning it up. The fire was still blazing in the grate, and the glow it gave the room made it easy to forget that some of the volumes on the shelves were deeply unpleasant tomes detailing most of the darker side of wizardry and witchcraft.

Remus moved the armchair and table they'd abandoned earlier back into their usual positions, and sat on the floor in front of the fire, his back against the sofa and his long legs stretched out in front of him. She sank down next to him, curling her feet up underneath her and resting her elbow on the seat of the sofa. The fire cast an orange glow on his face, highlighting the flecks of gold in his hair rather than the grey, and she thought she could probably look at him forever.

"Go on, then," he said, glancing at her as he lifted his mug to his lips. "I can tell you're dying to ask."

"Ask what?" she asked with mock-innocence. She knew her curiosity about the string of girls Sirius had reeled off was written all over her face.

"About my chequered past."

"Does it really qualify as chequered?" she said.

"I'm afraid so," he said. "If you look up the word 'chequered' in the dictionary, under the explanation of what the word means, it actually says 'see also: Remus J Lupin, love-life of.' Interestingly enough, you'll find exactly the same phrase under the word 'disaster'."

"Is it really that bad?"

He turned to face her, drawing his knees up underneath himself and resting his mug on the sofa seat. He met her eye with a steady gaze that she had the impression it was taking a lot of effort on his part to maintain. "I've been rash when I should have been cautious, cautious when I probably should have been rash," he said slowly. "I've fallen in love with people who were never going to be in love with me, and not fallen in love with people that I really probably should have done." He took a sip of his cocoa and frowned thoughtfully. "In fact, thinking about it, I'm not sure the word 'disaster' really covers it."

She sipped her drink for a minute, and tried not to let out a nervous giggle. She didn't really know why she was so curious – perhaps it was because the Remus she was getting to know now was so very different to the one she'd met at her second Order meeting. That man had been distant, somehow, hiding behind a shield of polite pleasantness. He'd been friendly, interested in talking to her, but never in a million years would she have imagined him doing anything but raise an eyebrow disapprovingly at the very suggestion that he might sneak into a broom cupboard with a girl.

The man sitting on the carpet sipping cocoa out of a chipped Chudley Cannons mug, however, was an entirely different prospect, something of an unknown quantity still, and she felt the need to take every opportunity to learn something new about him. She remembered that he'd said that Lucidia Jones wasn't even his worst romantic debacle, and then the way his jaw had tightened at the mention of the words Heather Noonan. She wondered if, perhaps, she was it.

She just couldn't help herself. "Go on, then," she said. "Tell me the story."

He furrowed his brow at her, shifting nervously on the carpet. "You know," he said, "normally I save this discussion for a little further down the line."

"Well if you're going to tell me sooner or later," she said, "it might as well be now."

"I'd really rather it was later," he said, a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes as if he was only putting up a token protest, "ideally somewhere near the end. As I'm taking my last rasping breath, perhaps."

"You know if I really wanted to know, I could just ask Siri –"

"Let's start with Lucidia Jones," he said quickly, cutting her off.

Tonks let out a laugh, and then settled down into the sofa, fixing him with her best interrogative look. "Did she break your heart?" she said.

Remus rested his elbow on the sofa and his head on his hand, peering thoughtfully at her through the firelight. "If you'd asked me at the time," he said, his grey eyes smiling slightly at the thought, "I would have said yes." He furrowed his brow and glanced up at the ceiling. "Actually, if you _had_ asked me at the time, all you'd have got in response was some pitiful wailing and perhaps a muttered threat about what I'd do to Arthur Wainwright if I ever got my hands on him," he added. He tilted his chin down and regarded her through his fringe. "But no, she didn't break my heart. Dented my pride well and truly, took a large proportion of my dignity and seriously damaged my self-respect, but my heart, I think, remained intact."

She sipped her drink and peered at him as thoughtfully as he was peering at her, as if she might somehow be able to see right into his brain if she just concentrated hard enough. She decided that just asking was probably easier. "I'm still having a bit of trouble with the idea of you having sex in a broom cupboard with a girl you barely knew," she said. "I'd have thought you'd be the type to wait until you had a serious girlfriend or something."

"To be honest I always thought I would be too," he said, his eyebrows squeezing together in consternation. "But at the time I was – "

"Desperate, teenaged and horny?" she offered, unable to help herself and barely holding in a snigger.

Remus laughed. "I was going to say not especially good with girls and so pleased that she liked me I wasn't really thinking straight," he said. "But I suppose desperate, teenage and – er – horny applies equally."

He shot her a rather nervous, knowing, glance and her stomach tightened, giving her the most deliciously distracting tingling sensation in her chest. She lifted her mug to her lips just so she'd have something to do with her hands that wasn't shoving him onto the carpet and snogging him senseless.

Tonks finished her drink and dropped her mug onto the floor, not entirely succeeding in pushing the urge aside. She smiled at the thought, crossing her arms on the sofa and resting her chin on the top one so she could hide her grin in her sleeve. "Was she your first girlfriend, then?" she said, and he copied her movements exactly, curling further into the sofa and resting his head on his folded arms, his mouth entirely hidden behind his arm.

"No," he said, slightly muffled. "The dubious honour of that title does in fact belong to Olivia Crosby."

"The girl you had the crush on?" she said, and he nodded.

"Having spent the latter part of the fifth year pretty much catatonic whenever she was around," he said, lifting his chin and resting it on his arm, "at the start of the sixth, it occurred to me that if we were ever going to achieve anything other than furtive glances filled with lust and longing across the library from behind our respective copies of _Numerology and Gramatica_, one of us would have to stop being shy," he said. He pressed his lips together against the grin that was beginning to pull at the corners of his mouth.

"So you asked her out?" she said, pressing her lips into her arm further to try and stop her grin from being too evident.

"In a manner of speaking," he said, with a soft chuckle. "I did what any self-respecting bookworm would, and passed her a note asking if she wanted to go out with me. She passed me one back saying yes, and for the first two weeks that we were officially together we exchanged barely a word that wasn't written down."

Tonks chuckled softly as she smiled at him, imagining how sweet he must have been. "What happened?"

"We were together for a while," he said, glancing down at the threadbare upholstery in front of his forearm and looking utterly dejected, "and then she chucked me for the captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. I was broken-hearted and spent the next three months sulking and listening to what Sirius and James dubbed 'dreary werewolf music'. Then _someone_ – " his eyes made an accusatory dart towards the hallway " – persuaded me that it might be a good idea to try and make her jealous, which accounts for some rather ill-advised public displays of affection with both Susan Dixon and Elsa Whitmore."

"For someone who claims to be no good with girls," she said, pressing her lips together against a grin, "you seem to have had a lot of girlfriends."

"And that rather proves my point, wouldn't you say?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her. "If I was any good with girls I'd have only needed one try to get it right. I'd have made Olivia Crosby fall madly in love with me, married her as soon as we left school and by now I'd have fourteen children who all hate me and be kicking myself for meeting you and not being able to do anything about it."

His eyes twinkled in the firelight, and she grinned at him, only half-hiding it behind her arms and wondering where the butterflies had suddenly come from. Kicking himself. She wanted to cheer.

"Do I have to go on?" he said. "Or will you accept on this evidence that I am, romantically speaking, a disaster area?" She was about to answer, but he suddenly looked rather distracted. "In fact," he said, "it's not even just romantically speaking. I'm a disaster at nearly everything. I can't play chess any more, I can't dance, and these days I can't even finish the crossword, which means my mind is probably going. I haven't the faintest idea why you haven't run, screaming, from the room."

"Is this part of your sweet and innocent routine?" she asked.

"I rather wish it were," he said, looking a little puzzled. "Let's face it, if I was half the cad Sirius seems to believe I am, I'd have had more success, more fun," he paused for a moment, glancing up at the ceiling thoughtfully, "and possibly slightly more vases thrown at me."

"Slightly more vases thrown at you?" she asked, her tone a little higher than she expected in reaction to the rather unexpected news that he was the kind of man who'd had vases thrown at him. He raised one eyebrow at her.

"I'll get to it."

She laughed, and he smiled at her sheepishly, shifting his position slightly and ending up a little closer than he had been, his elbows nearly touching hers. "I can't wait to hear the rest," she said, grinning and wishing she had popcorn. Listening to him talk was the very best spectator sport. "Go on."

Remus smiled, and settled down into his arm with his head on one side. "When Elsa – who was, incidentally, very lovely, and really did not deserve to be used in the way that I used her – realised that I was at best only half-interested in being with her, we had a long talk. She hugged me, said she understood, and that we should still be friends – which made me feel – " he pursed his lips in thought and then offered her a resigned shrug " – well, like Sirius would feel if he had even half a conscience."

He shot her an apologetic glance, and then sighed. "After that I swore off girls for the rest of the year," he said, tilting his head towards her and fixing his gaze on hers, with a rather mischievous glint in his eye, "which some might say lead, rather inevitably, to the aforementioned desperate teenage horniness and my allowing myself to be dragged into a broom cupboard and deflowered at the start of the next."

She tittered at his use of the word 'deflowered' as much as anything else, lifting her head slightly to rest on one hand and toying with a loose thread on the sofa with the other. "Which just leaves us with Hattie Partridge and Heather Noonan from Sirius' list," Tonks said.

"Well remembered," he said. "And here, I'm afraid I tend to lose any semblance of moral high ground that I might have had over your cousin, because I did really treat them both appallingly."

"How appallingly?"

"My appallingly," he said, raising an eyebrow at her to indicate that he thought it was an important distinction. "Not his."

She raised an eyebrow back to indicate that she understood, and he continued.

"After the – er – Lucidia Jones debacle, I decided that what I needed was a nice, sensible girlfriend," he said. "Unfortunately, because I'd slept with Lucidia Jones, none of the nice, sensible girls wanted to go out with me and I ended up with Heather Noonan, who was an utter lunatic."

"What kind of lunatic?"

"Every kind," he said. "Sirius had actually been out with her the year before, and he broke up with her because she was too much for him to handle – so you can imagine what she did to me."

He adjusted his position slightly, freeing one hand, and when she looked down she saw he was inching it towards hers. He touched the very tips of his fingers against hers, and when she looked at him he smiled slightly as if he'd been caught doing something that he knew he shouldn't but wasn't really sorry about it. Her breath caught in her chest, leaving her barely the time to wonder how even the tiniest of touches produced such a startling reaction.

"When we left school," he said, his voice a good deal softer than it had been a moment ago as he gently laid his fingers over hers, "she insisted that I take her home to meet my parents, and after an hour, my dad took me to one side and told me that if I married her, he'd disown me. I told him that I'd actually been trying to break up with her for two months, and he looked at me with utter despair and said 'son, please try harder'."

She laughed, a little more breathily than she intended to, owing to the way his fingers were flirting with hers and sending tingles from her fingertips right through her body. "Why couldn't you break up with her?" she asked as he continued stroking a hypnotic trail up and down her fingers.

"I was trying to be nice about it," he said, his eyebrows twitching up slightly. "I didn't really want to hurt her feelings because I thought she really did like me – although it _was_ very hard to tell in amongst all the shouting and tears," he added with a frown. "Sirius and James said I should fake my own death to get away from her, but I thought that was a little ghoulish, and I wasn't entirely convinced that she would consider my death an adequate reason for us not to be together."

He rested his head on one side, his fringe falling across one eye and gazed at her, lifting their hands a little way off the sofa as he laced his fingers through hers and stroked her thumb with his, leaving the absolute briefest impression of a touch on her skin. "But you managed it eventually?" she said, not really registering the question as it left her lips. The movement of his fingers over hers really was far too distracting.

"Well yes," he said, unlacing their fingers and tracing almost imperceptible patterns on the back of her hand that made her want to close her eyes and shiver.

He paused and met her eye, a glimmer of utmost reluctance in his expression before he continued his story. "The next time she launched into one of her rants about whatever it was that I'd done to annoy her that day, I snapped and told her I'd had enough and I didn't want to go out with her anymore. She said I was being ridiculous, that we were destined to be together and that once we were married I'd feel differently." Tonks felt her eyes widen.

"You'd asked her to – "

"No," he said, rather urgently. "I'd said nothing of the sort, which is why I panicked, and ended up shouting that I'd rather gargle troll snot than spend another second of my time in her company, let alone forever. Then I remembered where we were."

Tonks leant forward, rapt, and whispered, "And that was?"

"Middle of Gringotts," he said, grimacing. "She burst into such a spectacular flood of tears that I actually feared the goblins on the floor might drown."

Tonks was caught between a desire to gasp and laugh, and did a little of both. "What did you do?" she asked, grinning at him rather wickedly.

Remus shifted on the floor and cleared his throat. "I – er – ran out and left her there," he said, a flicker of what she thought was probably shame passing through his eyes. "I thought if I did anything else she'd get the wrong idea and I'd be back at square one. When I told him, Sirius laughed for a week."

He slipped his fingers through hers and peered up at her questioningly. "I told you it was appalling," he said. She smiled at him reassuringly, because really, she didn't think that leaving a girl crying in Gringotts was _that _ bad. Well, it was, but the gentle pressure of his fingers on hers was certainly distracting her from really caring. She idly wondered if that was why he was doing it. Then she rather less idly wondered, if this was what he could do to her playing with her fingers, what might he be able to do to her given access to the rest of her? For some reason, thinking that seemed to make the room unbearably hot.

"I almost don't want to ask about Hattie Partridge," Tonks said, biting her lip on one side and smiling at him rather teasingly, her heart thundering.

"Almost enough that I don't have to tell you the story?" he asked hopefully.

"Dream on."

"All right," he said.

He paused for a moment, collecting himself. "About a year after I'd managed to get rid of Heather, I fell in love," he said softly, "but being me, I, of course, chose to do it with someone who was steadfastly not in love with me and was never likely to be. And I was pretty miserable. Very miserable, in fact. _Someone_," he said, his eyes making another accusatory pass over the doorway, "suggested that I might feel better if I – er – to be blunt about it – shagged someone else, and to be honest I didn't have any better ideas, so when I met Hattie at a party, I did."

"Did it help?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Does it ever?"

She chuckled softly. "What did you do?"

"When I woke up I regretted it immediately," he said. "In fact, I'm pretty certain I regretted it while we were doing it – although I'd had a great deal of Firewhiskey and to be honest, most of the details remain mercifully fuzzy."

"Did you see her again?"

"Yes," he said. "We went out a few times – I felt too bad about it not to, but…. She was a nice girl, but we didn't have a great deal in common. In fact, we had nothing in common aside from the fact that one drunken night we'd decided to sleep together."

"I'm assuming you weaselled your way out of it somehow?"

"Weaselled?" he said, with a rather appalled look. "I'll have you know I dealt with the situation like a man."

"And that involves?"

Remus cleared his throat. "Telling her the truth," he said, suddenly fascinated by the ceiling, "and then letting her brother, who I probably should have remembered was a semi-professional Quidditch player, catch up with me and knock me out."

"He hit you?"

"Only once," Remus said genially. "He was a Beater."

Tonks sniggered for a long time, and Remus squirmed, staring intently at her fingers as he toyed with them a little less absentmindedly than he had been before.

She suddenly had an idea. "Would this, by any chance, be the thing you did once after a bottle of Firewhiskey and didn't want to tell me about?" she said.

"Alas, no," he said. "Although this has all the elements: nudity, humiliation and indeed a fist fight – if you can call one punch and a not very manly collapse that – it is in fact, nowhere near as embarrassing a story as the actual Firewhiskey incident."

Tonks dug into the pocket of her jeans and held out a couple of sickles to him. "What's that for?" he said, smiling with a slightly confused expression.

"The curiosity's killing me and you said you might be willing to take a bribe."

"I might," he said, "but it's a good story and I'd be looking for a great deal more than that."

"How about one of those honey trap things, then?"

"Really, Tonks," he said, "you should look that up before making me an offer like that, because when you find out what it is, you really are going to want to slap me."

"Maybe I should join the queue."

He scowled at her playfully. "Taught me a valuable lesson, anyway," he said.

"About the evils of getting off with people at parties?"

"Oh no," he said. "I'm fairly certain I haven't learnt that yet. I have stopped listening to your cousin, though."

"Has it occurred to you that he has, in fact, been the cause of a great many of your romantic problems?"

"Oh yes," he said. "So imagine my delight that he's taking such an interest at the moment."

He glanced at her with amused weariness, turning her hand over and tracing delightfully tingly patterns on her palm with his middle finger. "I seem to remember there being mention of a vase," she said softly, her voice little more than a whimper. Remus cleared his throat, and let out a deep sigh, working his fingertips down to the inside of her wrist and producing a frisson of excitement as he traced the path of her veins so gently she could barely feel it.

"That would bring us right up to date, and proves that even without _someone_'s interference, I have, in fact, fared little better."

"Go on," she said, biting her lip in an attempt to control her breathing and wondering if he had any idea what he was doing to her.

"Well," he said, "it concerns my most recent relationship, which was –" he glanced up at the ceiling in thought " – a while ago. Her name was Claire, and I liked her very much, but one day we had the most spectacular and pointless row about the fact that I wouldn't argue with her about visiting her mother. Apparently, it was obvious to her that I didn't want to go, and when I said that I really didn't mind she accused me of being 'annoyingly reasonable'."

He paused for a moment, pressing his lips together and smiling self-consciously. She felt a bubble of intense laughter rise in her chest, not least because she could very much imagine someone finding Remus annoyingly reasonable. "When I didn't put up a fight about that, she screamed, threw a vase at me and left," he said. "I never saw her again."

Tonks stopped trying to hold her laughter in and collapsed onto the sofa in hysterics. He eyed her with amused awkwardness. "I have no idea why I just told you all that," he said. "I have – if possible – just made myself look like an even less appealing prospect than you thought I was when you agreed to go out with me."

"I wouldn't say that," she said.

If anything, she thought his stories made him sound like a much more intriguing prospect. He'd always seemed completely together and capable, and it was nice to know that he made mistakes, that he was as prone to making a mess of things as she was. He laced his fingers back trough hers and looked at her plaintively. "So what do you think?"

For a second she debated saying something about everyone having skeletons in their romantic cupboards, but suddenly the desire to grab him by the shoulders and snog him senseless surged through her body, and she decided that it might be a better idea to show him what she thought than tell him.

"Remus?" she said. He lifted his head, raising his eyebrows at her inquisitively. She was momentarily gripped by the fear that she had no idea what to say and rather less idea what to do. She'd let him make all the moves so far – mostly because she was very much enamoured of his moves – but also to see what he would do, how far he wanted to take things, and she supposed, how much he liked her.

His eyes roved her face nervously. She bit her lip. "Oh hell," she said, and before she lost her nerve, she dived forward and covered his lips with hers. He seemed a little startled by her actions, and pulled away slightly.

But it was the briefest flicker of hesitation, and then he responded, kissing her softly at first, and then as ardently as she kissed him. She slid her fingers into the fine hair at the nape of his neck, wondering if she really felt him shiver or imagined it, and marvelling at how warm his skin felt under her fingers as she trailed them up his neck and along his jaw. She eased him closer, kissing him more insistently, and he responded in kind, wrapping one arm around her waist, his other hand occupied with burying itself in her hair as he nudged her lips apart and delved into her mouth enthusiastically.

It had been a while since she'd kissed anyone in front of a fire, and she'd forgotten how good it felt to have her skin warmed by flickering flames and someone else's fingers at the same time. Although she wasn't sure it had ever really felt this good before. Kissing Remus was bliss.

He straightened up and pulled her closer to him, making soft noises of delight against her mouth, which in turn sent the most delicious shudders through her body as she realised that she must be having an effect on him, even though she doubted that she could be driving him a tenth as mad as he was driving her.

Kissing him was like coming to the sudden realisation that she was alive. She could feel her pounding heartbeat more keenly than ever, the blood rushing through her veins was far more apparent than it should be, and her skin reacted to him as if every touch was made of fire. The way his fingers moved through her hair produced the most spectacular fireworks inside her head, the sparks from which slowly drifted down onto the rest of her body, tickling her where they landed.

She leant against him, pressing him back against the sofa and he tightened his grip, one hand just below her shoulder blade, the other slipping out of her hair and moving down the back of her neck. His fingers slid just inside the neck of her T shirt and over the warm skin at the start of her shoulder, and he caressed the muscle in her neck with his thumb. Her insides shuddered. It was an intimate and innocent gesture at the same time, and she found it a rather heady combination, feeling sure that her eyes would have fluttered back in their sockets if she hadn't had them closed.

She had to concentrate very hard to react at all instead of just giving in to the delirium he was causing and dissolving into a puddle on the carpet. Her hand managed to find his waist and then move upwards. She loved the way his jumper felt underneath her fingers as she slid her hands over his chest and onto his shoulders, how he moved against her touch, how he kissed her…she found herself half-heartedly wondering if she should send whichever girlfriend had taught him how to kiss like this a thank you note.

When he pulled away there was a pang of regret in her stomach, which the butterflies grudgingly made room for, and she had a little difficulty focusing. She swallowed and fixed her eyes on his until the room came back. It took a couple of minutes, which was lucky, since she needed a few moments to get her breath back, and apparently, so did he.

Remus made a noise of vague surprise, his eyebrows high on his forehead and his eyes darting from hers to her lips. "Erm – "

He swallowed. She bit her lip and looked at him with mock-apology, feeling that she should probably say something. She went with the first thing that popped into her head.

"All that time practising in broom cupboards paid off, then," she said, grinning. One of his eyebrows gave a brief twitch upwards, and he let out a noise of slightly surprised agreement.

"I take it I'm forgiven for my past indiscretions, then?" he said, and she bit her lip and nodded. "Good," he said, and grinned at her rather wickedly. "Now come here," he said softly, pulling her back into him. His kiss this time was light and soft, but no less sexy. It teetered on the very brink of being more than she could stand.

A note wasn't enough. She should send flowers. Lots and lots and lots of flowers, she thought.

And then she couldn't think anything. Except _yikes_.

She could probably have kissed him forever and not been bored of it, and when they moved apart he certainly seemed reluctant, and didn't move very far away. He rested his elbow on the sofa, propping his head up with his hand and peering up at her through his hair. He ran his other hand down her arm and laced his fingers through hers, pulling their palms together and igniting some kind of firework that rocketed from where they touched up her arm and into her stomach before exploding in a cascade of tingles.

"Come on, then," he said, softly. "Fair's fair. Tell me about you."

She thought it was a pretty unfair request, expecting her to come up with coherent sentences when her heart was racing, her brain was still jittering with sensory overload and he'd turned her insides to jelly. "I'm not sure I can compete," she said. "Not that I haven't made a mess of things, I just – dunno, tend to do it in a slightly less spectacular way, I think."

"If you have no amusing stories at all," he said, lifting her hand to his lips and placing a warm, soft kiss on her fingers, "I'll be horribly disappointed."

"What do you want to know?" she asked, thinking that in her weakened state, she'd probably tell him anything.

He thought about it momentarily, stroking her thumb with his, presumably to keep her on the verge of fainting. "Tell me about the first boy you kissed," he said.

"Urgh," she said, shivering at the thought. His eyes widened in surprise.

"That doesn't sound good."

"It wasn't," she said. She rested her elbow on the sofa next to his and rested her head on her hand, loosely toying with her hair and wishing he was doing it instead.

"His name was Carl and he was hideous," she said. "His dad was friends with my dad, so they were always around in the summer, and one day he just grabbed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth and kind of waggled it around. It was disgusting. I managed to get away from him – and then I – " She stopped and swallowed, wondering if this was really the kind of thing she wanted to tell him. He raised an eyebrow at her encouragingly. She closed her eyes, unsure about whether she could say it while he was looking at her. " – I turned it into a cucumber."

She opened her eyes to gage his reaction. He looked a little bemused, and possibly a touch wary. "His tongue?" he asked, putting slightly too much emphasis on the word 'tongue' and giving her the impression that he was asking rather more in hope than expectation. She bit her lip and shifted on the carpet in embarrassment.

"Er, no," she said. "His – er – his – "

"Oh," Remus said slowly, saving her the trouble of finding the right word. His eyes widened momentarily, and he looked vaguely amused and impressed before giving in to a mischievous grin. "I'd better watch my step, then."

Her cheeks twitched into a wide smile. "I got in a whole heap of trouble for it," she said, "with the Ministry and everything. My mum was so furious she wouldn't speak to me for three weeks, and it put me off kissing so much that I didn't even try it again for three years."

"Well," he said, giving her a faint yet rather flirtatious smile, "I, for one, am very glad you didn't give up on it entirely. Can I ask who it was who tempted you to give it another go?"

Tonks felt herself blush. "Charlie Weasley," she muttered, hoping he might not hear.

"Charlie Weasley?" he echoed, evidently surprised. "I didn't know you two were – "

"We weren't really," she said. "One night everyone was playing spin the bottle and he dared me to join in, and I ended up kissing him. It was pretty nice and after that there was a fair bit of sneaking behind statues and stuff to snog. I think he wanted to go out with me."

"But you didn't?"

"I wasn't really interested in anything else he could do with his mouth," she said, "like you know, talking." Remus let out a soft snort of laughter. "Oh come on," she said, rolling her eyes at him, "have you ever spoken to Charlie Weasley, at length?"

"Not really."

"Well, someone should tell him that girls who are interested in the minute anatomical differences between a Hungarian Horntail and a Norwegian Ridgeback are very few and far between. And nearly none of them want to stop mid-snog and see a diagram."

He eyed her with amusement. "Who else's heart have you broken?" he said.

"What makes you think I've broken anybody's heart?"

"I've got eyes."

She laughed into the back of her hand, half-amused and half very, very flattered. When she'd recovered from the slight reeling sensation his words had caused, she shrugged a little guiltily, knowing that she had probably dented a couple of hearts, bruised a few more, if not broken any entirely. "I don't mean to," she said sheepishly, stifling a yawn and realising how drowsy the fire was making her feel. "I just get bored easily."

"Well that doesn't bode well for me," he said. "Most days I can barely hold my own attention, let alone anyone else's."

Tonks gave him a playful shove. He leant back and winced in what she hoped was mock-pain, and then settled his head back on his hand, gazing at her with a half-smile. "I think you're holding out on me," he said. "You want to prise out all of my secrets without giving up any of your own."

Damn, she thought. Foiled.

"All right," she said. "I don't have a lot of deep, dark, secrets, but my parents caught me once."

"Caught you doing what?" he asked, raising his eyebrow at her and shooting her a rather cheeky look.

"There was this bloke when I was in Auror training," she said. "We were pretty serious for a bit and my mum insisted on meeting him – I think she half-thought I'd invented him just to shut her up. So I took him home for the weekend, but when we arrived my parents weren't there, and, well, we hadn't seen each other in a while…."

"And?"

"Well, if you were my mum and dad, what's the one thing you wouldn't want to walk in on me doing?"

"I can think of a couple of things," he said, raising one eyebrow at her.

"Pick the worst."

"Oh," he said, sniggering slightly. She'd never heard him snigger before, and she was quite pleased with herself. "What did they do?"

"Nothing. My mum said 'so sorry to interrupt', closed the door, and we never spoke of it again. We all spent the rest of the weekend being falsely chipper, like if any of us stopped grinning for a second, or there was a moment's silence the world would stop spinning. It was pretty mortifying," she said.

"What happened to him?"

"Nothing very interesting," she said. "We both worked a lot, kind of drifted apart."

Remus gave her a lop-sided smile and rolled his eyes. "Now why didn't I say that?" he said. "In fact, I retract everything I said earlier. I've never had a vase thrown at me, or made a girl cry in Gringotts, or been knocked out by someone's furious older brother. We just drifted apart."

"Too late," she said. "I know all your dirty little secrets."

"Not all," he said, and when she looked surprised, he raised an eyebrow at her. "You didn't seriously expect me to give them all up in one night?"

"So there's more, is there?"

"That," he said, dropping his chin and looking up at her and making her stomach flip, "would be telling."

"That's kind of the point."

"You're not going to get anything else out of me."

"Really?" she said. "How can you be so sure? I can be very persuasive."

"I'll distract you."

Sounds like fun, she thought. "How do you plan to do that?"

"I thought," he said, moving towards her a little, his fingers drifting up to her jaw, "I'd try this…"

He brought her lips to his, and kissed her back into a state of very distracting delirium. "Hmm," she murmured as he pulled away. "And if that doesn't work?"

"Then I'm done for."

He played with a strand of her hair for a moment, letting it fall through his fingers and onto her shoulder before picking it up again. "So," she said, fixing him with her best, and probably completely unnecessary, flirtatious look. "Are you going to offer to take me out again, or are you just going to pounce on me when no-one's looking?"

His eyes twinkled mischievously. "Well I am a pretty big fan of the pouncing," he said, his eyes softening as he looked at her, "but I would be delighted to take you out again. Where would you like to go? I heard Bill and the twins talking this morning, and apparently there's a place quite near here that plays the kind of music you like."

"The kind of music _I_ like?"

"Don't make me describe it as a racket, Tonks," he said, raising an eyebrow at her playfully. "It makes me feel old."

She laughed, mentally scrolling through her schedule. She'd got the next two nights off, but she didn't want him to get sick of her, and they had, after all, spent a large portion of the weekend together already. "Are you free on Wednesday?"

"Unfortunately not," he said. "I have a prior engagement with another woman."

She felt her eyes widen in disbelief that he was telling her this, thinking that that was one secret she could have done without hearing. He laughed softly. "It's a full moon," he said gently.

"Oh," she said, smiling in relief and embarrassment, and thinking that she should probably start keeping better track of the moon. He met her eyes with a look of vague amusement.

"I was very flattered by the look on your face, though," he said, giving in to a grin.

"Well," she said, not really knowing where she was going with the sentence and staring intently at the carpet. "I'm glad you're not seeing somebody else. Saves me the bother of having to turn your fingers into tomatoes."

"Only my fingers?" he said. "I'm disappointed."

She narrowed her eyes and shot him a sarcastic smile. But she could never be annoyed with him, even playfully annoyed, for very long, and she suspected that he knew it. "How about Friday?" she said.

"Date with Moody at some remote farm-house," he said. "I'm not expecting him to try anything so you won't need to show me how to transfigure bits of him into salad vegetables."

"Saturday?"

"Same," he said, his voice tinged with regret. "The problem with having a reputation for being a boring old git with no social life is that you tend to get stuck with all the unpopular shifts."

"No-one thinks you're a boring old git with no social life," she said. He raised an eyebrow at her in disbelief. "Alright," she conceded. "_I_ don't think you're a boring old git with no social life. I'm free this Monday," she offered.

"Do you want to go to that bar?"

"We could," she said, but quite unexpectedly, she had a thought. She didn't really want to go out with Remus again.

She wanted to stay in and have him all to herself. "Or you could just come over to mine for dinner, or something," she said. The nervous twitch she thought she'd seen the last of jumped in her stomach at the thought of being alone with him all evening in her flat.

Remus smiled. "I think we have a winner," he said, and she stifled another yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. "Well," he said, smiling at her indulgently. "It's very late and you're either very tired or utterly bored of me."

"The former," she said. "Sorry."

"There'd only be need to apologise if it were the latter," he said. "In the spirit of making things up as we go along," he said, "how about instead of wishing you goodnight, I see you to your room?"

She nodded her assent, delighted at the prospect. There was certainly something to be said for making things up as they went along. He tightened his grip on her fingers and got to his feet, pulling her up after him. "And just so you know," he said, leaning in conspiratorially, his eyes twinkling, "I plan to pounce on you outside your door. If you have any objections, you should raise them now."

She grinned._ Objections?_ she thought.

As if.

* * *

**A/N: Even though we all know Valentine's Day is a hollow sham (and yes, I am only saying that because no-one sent me flowers), I thought I'd post this today since it hopefully pushes some seasonal buttons.**

**Anyone who reviews gets a bouquet of their favourite flowers with a note that says:**

**_I have eschewed the traditional question mark because I wanted you to know these are from me, RJL xx._**

**Incidentally, I had bags of fun creating Remus' string of exes, and I thought some of them, perhaps, warranted a little more exploration than they get here. I've also really missed writing from Remus' point of view, so I've written a kind of companion to this chapter, which will take a quick glance at some of his more significant significant others. **

**If you fancy it, it's called Disaster: See also, Remus J Lupin, love-life of, and the link should be in my profile presently. **


	7. The Big Brother Thing

Tonks' alarm went off, piercing its way into her subconscious and shattering a particularly pleasing dream about Remus. She yawned and cursed the alarm, absentmindedly silencing it with her wand and ruffling her hair with her other hand.

What had she been dreaming? She closed her eyes and tried to remember, but all the details were gone, and the more she tried to remember, the further away the details slipped, drifting through her mind like smoke. It had left a warm glow in her stomach, whatever it was.

She sighed for a moment, and then leapt out of bed, knowing that the longer she put it off the worse she'd feel. She hurriedly pulled on her jeans and a purple fluffy jumper before the chill of her room destroyed the warmth in her insides. The dream had put her in a very good mood, and even stubbing her toe on the leg of the desk couldn't dent it. She pulled on her trainers and considered herself in the mirror.

She took in her fluffy jumper and pink hair and wondered if it wasn't all just a bit too much. She screwed up her nose and turned her hair a much more normal dark brown colour, then decided that that was too sensible and settled on dark blue, which seemed a good compromise. She wondered what Remus made of her appearance, if he wouldn't, perhaps, prefer it if she looked a bit more normal sometimes.

She went downstairs, half-wondering if she'd find Remus in the kitchen.

In fact, she wasn't wondering at all, she was desperately hoping. After all, the only thing better than dream Remus was the real thing. She pushed open the kitchen door, and started when she found Sirius sitting at the table cradling a mug of tea. He was the very last person she expected to encounter at half-past six in the morning. He raised his eyes to hers and muttered a greeting glumly. "What are you doing up so early?" she said.

"Remus woke me when he left," he said. "Decided to just give up on trying to go back to sleep and get up."

"Oh," she said, wondering where Remus was in such a hurry to get to and trying not to sound too disappointed that she'd have to make do with her cousin instead. "Where is he?"

"He's with Mad-Eye," Sirius said. "When I asked him what they were doing he just rolled his eyes and said 'don't even ask'. I think he thinks whatever they're doing is a wild goose chase."

She crossed the kitchen and snatched a mug off the dresser, and then settled into a chair opposite Sirius and poured herself a cup of tea. She tossed two sugar lumps into it and added just a touch of milk, painfully aware that Sirius was watching her intently.

"So," Sirius said, leaning back in his chair and grinning at her. Suddenly he didn't seem at all tired or grouchy. It was worrying. "You and Moony."

Tonks met his gaze evenly, not wanting to give anything away. She suspected that Remus was right – Sirius couldn't help but interfere.

Well, he could. He just wouldn't.

"Yes?" she said, pulling one knee up to her chest and sipping her tea as if the idea of talking about it didn't bother her at all.

"I heard you're having him over for dinner tonight."

"You heard right," she said.

"That'll be cosy," Sirius said, smirking.

"If he plays his cards right," she retorted.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter. "Oh, he will," he said, with a knowing glint in his eyes that she wasn't sure she liked. "You can be sure of that."

"Can I now?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Oh yes," he said. "He's very good at – " Sirius paused for a brief snigger. " – card games."

"Card games?"

"Yes," Sirius said into his mug. "But don't play him at Exploding Snap – especially strip Exploding Snap – bastard's got reflexes like lightning. I remember one time he – "

"I'll give you ten galleons not to finish that sentence."

"Alright," Sirius said, grinning. "But if you end up with something singed you'll only have yourself to blame."

"You can't get singed with Exploding Snap cards."

"You can with the ones we used to play with."

Tonks sipped her tea and tried not to think of naked Exploding Snap, singeing, and, _man alive_, naked Remus. She allowed herself a brief flare of a fluttering sensation, before banishing the thought to the corner of her mind where she kept things she shouldn't think about early in the morning.

Or in public.

Or, in fact, at all.

She wrestled her mind back onto steadier ground, ground that didn't have naked Remuses on it. There had been something she'd hoped to pin Sirius down on, and she thought this was as good an opportunity as any, if only to keep her mind from reeling to places she thought it really shouldn't go.

"While we're kind of on the subject," she said, shifting a little in her seat and wondering if asking her cousin's advice was a good idea, or if she was just giving him ammunition for future embarrassment raids, "what kind of girls does Remus normally go for?" she said quickly, before she could lose her nerve.

"I see," Sirius said. "You want to put that special rainbow hair of yours to good use, do you?"

"Maybe," she said, lowering her eyes and studying the table. She ran her fingernail along a thin groove in the wood, trying to look as if it were a casual inquiry, even though her insides were squirming.

"Well," Sirius said. "He's an odd one, is our Moony. The only thing all the girls I've ever known him to be interested in have in common is that they've got absolutely nothing in common."

"Oh," she said, feeling a quick flash of annoyance. Just her luck, she thought, to pick a man who couldn't be relied upon to have a thing for leggy blondes, or busty brunettes, or something else she could work with.

Sirius rolled his eyes at her, and then leant forward, resting his mug on the table and clasping his hands around it. "What ever it is he likes about you," he said, his tone far more serious than she was used to hearing, "I'm sure it's not dependent on the colour of your hair. In fact, I'm damn sure of it."

"Really?" she said.

"Yes, really."

"Has he said something?"

"No."

"But – " she trailed off, feeling the weight of early morning befuddlement pressing down on her brain. How could he be sure if Remus hadn't said anything?

She tried to jostle the fragments of conversations they'd had on the subject in her mind into something approaching a thought. "You said he'd been mooning over me for months," she said. "He must've said something if you knew that?"

"Ah," Sirius said. "No. The thing you have to learn about Moony is that it's very rarely what he says that gives away what he's thinking. I wouldn't have known anything if I hadn't caught him."

Her mind reeled. "Caught him doing what?" she asked slowly, and with a good deal of trepidation, her surprise pushing the pitch of her voice up a few notches.

"Pacing."

"Pacing?"

"Yes," Sirius said. "One night – you were out on some mission, and I couldn't sleep, so I came down to get a drink and I caught him, in the kitchen, at four o'clock in the morning, waiting for you, and pacing."

"He was waiting for me?"

"You were late back – an hour or two late. He was worried."

"But he would have been worried about anybody."

"Worried, yes, pacing, no," Sirius said, with obvious amusement at the confused look on her face. "Have you not noticed his super-human ability to stay calm and still?" he asked, and she shook her head, still a little confused as to what she was supposed to be seeing. "I've known him since I was eleven," Sirius said. "I've seen him pace a grand total of four times, and you were the cause of one of them. It was pretty obvious why. When you came in, he was so relieved I thought he was going to hug you – in fact, I think he probably would have done if I hadn't been there."

Tonks' chest erupted into a cascade of fluttering sensations. It had never occurred to her that he might have ever been worried about her. She thought about all the times she'd just seemed to run into him when she finished a shift for the Order...she'd just assumed he'd been up anyway. But maybe not. "You were completely oblivious, of course," Sirius said. "You just said goodnight and skipped off to bed."

"You know, if I'd known – if _someone_ had told me – " She shot Sirius a pointed look and he sank a little lower in his chair.

"How was I supposed to know you had a thing for lanky werewolves?"

"I don't have a thing for lanky werewolves."

"Just the one, eh?"

She laughed. There seemed little point denying it. "I would have said something," Sirius said, "but I just thought he had another dose of the unrequiteds. I think he did too."

"You make it sound like a sexually transmitted disease."

"Oh it is," Sirius said. "It's the one you get when you're not getting any. I think he's had it most of his life."

"The other night when you were reeling off ex-girlfriends, you seemed to think something else."

Sirius looked slightly too pleased with himself. "I'm assuming you interrogated him thoroughly?"

"He told me all about them, yes."

"All nicely spun to show him in the best possible light, I presume," Sirius said.

"I wouldn't say that."

"Oh he wouldn't have been obvious about it," Sirius said, rocking back in his chair. "He'd have made himself look like just enough of a bastard to make you think he was telling the truth."

"You think he lied to me?"

"Of course he did," Sirius said. "Men never tell the truth about themselves to women they want to sleep with."

Tonks felt the early prickling of a blush creep below the surface of her cheeks. Of course she thought – hoped, even – that Remus wanted to sleep with her, but to hear it out loud just seemed so, well, out loud, and she wasn't sure this was the kind of conversation she wanted to have with Sirius. Or, in fact, anyone.

"You're _supposed_ to be friends," Tonks said, thinking that that was a better tack to take than dwelling on the – er – other, sleeping together, thing.

"We are," Sirius said. "If we weren't I'd just be sitting back and waiting for him to mess it up so I could have a bloody good laugh at him. Lord knows I need one stuck in this place," he said, eyeing the kitchen with disgust. Tonks thought that if what Remus had told her was true, friendship wouldn't get in the way of Sirius having a good laugh at him.

"How do you know he's going to mess it up?"

Sirius' eyebrows twitched upwards. "I thought you said he told you all about his past romantic endeavours?"

"He did."

"Then how can you think he's _not_ going to mess it up?" Sirius said. "He's very good at card games, but bloody rubbish at knowing what's a good bet and when and how to fold."

"Do you always talk in these daft metaphors early in the morning?"

"Dunno," Sirius said, furrowing his brow in thought. "It's been twenty years since I was up this early."

"Well that explains it," she said. "You're early-morning crazy."

"Perhaps," he said.

Sirius got to his feet and staggered to the pantry. He rooted around inside for a minute and then returned with the biscuit tin. "What do you want for breakfast?" he said, lifting the lid and offering it to her over the table. "Digestives or shortcakes?"

She took a shortcake and dunked it in her tea before stuffing the whole thing in her mouth. Sirius did exactly the same thing, which she couldn't help but find slightly worrying. "So, you and Moony," Sirius said.

"Didn't we just do that?" she said, meeting his eye with a rather puzzled expression.

"Yes," he said. "It didn't go exactly the way I wanted so I thought I'd start again."

"Are you going to try to actually say something this time? Maybe omit the daft metaphors?"

"My metaphors were positively Swiftian," Sirius said.

"Swiftian?" she said.

"I've read a book," he said. "Don't tell anyone."

She laughed. "So what was it you were trying to say?" she said, helping herself to another biscuit and trying to eat it more decorously this time.

"Nothing, just – " Sirius seemed momentarily torn, she presumed between what he wanted to say and what he thought he should say. "He's nowhere near as sweet and innocent as you think he is, that's all. He's a Marauder in more than just name."

"You can talk," she said. "Mum always said you were a right charmer."

"And I am," Sirius said, "given half a chance," he added as a rueful mutter. "But at least I'm upfront about it."

"And you don't think he is?" Sirius raised an eyebrow at her. "Would it make you feel better to know he's been a perfect gentleman so far?"

Sirius scoffed. "I bet he hasn't."

"I think I'd have noticed if – "

"No," Sirius said, laughing, "I meant I bet he's done something sly, something underhand. You just haven't spotted it because you'd never think that he would." She frowned at him, and Sirius was momentarily lost in thought. "Let me see," he said, pursing his lips and twitching them from side to side in thought. "When was the first time he kissed you?"

"Christmas Day."

"Christmas Day, hmm?" Sirius said.

"After I got back from my parents'. He was in the library."

"Waiting for you so he could take advantage of your festive spirit," Sirius said, his eyes lighting up. "See?"

Tonks rolled her eyes at him. "He was reading."

"That's what he wants you to think. How did it happen?"

"What do you mean, how did it happen?" she said. "We were talking, there was mistletoe, he kissed me. All perfectly innocent."

"Perfectly innocent my hippogriff," Sirius said, barely holding in a laugh. "How about the mistletoe?"

He watched her with a knowing expression she found infuriating, biting his lip against a smirk. She couldn't quite tell if he was smirking at what Remus was supposed to have done to the mistletoe or the fact that she evidently didn't have a clue what he was talking about. "The mistletoe?" she said.

Sirius regarded her curiously, resting his head on his hand. "Who do you think put it there?"

"Don't be ridiculous. He couldn't have known where I was going to stand."

"Oh for the love of – " Sirius said, glancing up at the ceiling and shaking his head in rueful exasperation. "You're supposed to be an Auror. Was it there when you walked in?"

"I don't know," she said. "It just caught my eye when I was standing under it."

"Do you think," Sirius said, his voice tinged with amused irritation, "that there's a chance it caught your eye because it suddenly appeared, say, out of nowhere, as if by magic?"

Tonks felt her eyes widen and her stomach drop in realisation. "You think he conjured it as an excuse to kiss me?"

"Thank you," Sirius said, collapsing on his hand in melodramatic relief. "I thought we'd never get there."

Tonks grinned at the thought that Remus would go to so much trouble just to kiss her. It wasn't as if she would have protested whenever or however he had chosen to do it, but the fact that he'd thought about it enough to try and engineer it made her stomach tingle. "Typical," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "I do something like that and people accuse me of being predatory, manipulative and only after one thing. _He_ does it, and people think it's sweet."

"It is sweet." Sirius rolled his eyes at her. "What? It is."

"Or it's underhand and devious," Sirius said.

"You only think it's underhand and devious because if _you _did it your intentions would be underhand and devious," she said.

Sirius let out a soft snort of laughter. "Cousin," he said, "that may be a fair point."

"Well," she said, draining her mug and getting to her feet, "this whole big brother thing has been fun, but I should get to work."

"Fun?" he said, appalled. "I was being serious. Mostly," he added as an afterthought.

She crossed the kitchen and put her mug in the sink, before turning to Sirius' back. She rested her elbow on his shoulder and her chin on her hand, peering at him through her new blue fringe. "I know you were," she said, "and I appreciate your efforts, but –"

"But you're not going to listen to a word I've said."

"I'm a big girl," she said. "I have done this before."

"Alright," Sirius said, raising his hands defensively. "Just keep your wits about you. Con– "

"Sirius Black, if you use the phrase 'constant vigilance' I'll strangle you."

"It's just – it's always the quiet ones you have to watch, that's all. Just remember what I said about caterpillars and tickling charms when he tries to deviously seduce you. Which he will."

Tonks wrapped her arms around Sirius' shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "Did it ever occur to you," she said, "that I want him to deviously seduce me?"

"What?" he said.

"I'd hardly have invited him over for dinner if I didn't."

She gave Sirius a peck on the cheek, and then left him mouthing his shock to the empty kitchen.

* * *

**A/N: Many, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Heck, there were a lot of you, and if I didn't get round to sending you a reply/shameless update plug it's only because I'd run out of witty and interesting things to say. Some may argue, in fact, that I ran out of witty and interesting things to say long before that, but anyway…. Anyone who reviews this one gets a warm and fuzzy dream Remus of their own to play with until I get the next chapter finished, which, incidentally, shouldn't be too long and will come with what I consider to be my best review bribe yet. **

**This was intended to just be the opening scene of the next chapter, but as that one's turning into a bit of a behemoth, I thought I'd best post this on its own. And – er – apologies that there isn't _actually_ any Remus in it…. He's in the next one…a lot. Promise. **


	8. Dinner, Or Something

Tonks stood in her lounge, cursing Kingsley Shacklebolt and frantically banishing assorted items through her open bedroom door into a makeshift pile of things she didn't want Remus to see. Then she had a thought. What if he wanted to..?

Her mind left the question unfinished, preferring instead to concentrate on a gulp. Bedroom might not be the best place to hide things. Another gulp. She opened the door to the cupboard and quickly transferred the pile to there, forcing the door shut and sealing it with a great deal of effort as it bulged under the weight of things she didn't want him to see. There was far more stuff than she thought there would be.

Her eyes darted around the tiny flat as she wondered far too late what he'd make of it. It still wasn't exactly a palace – although it was no longer strewn with abandoned clothes, there was a steady stream of condensation running down the window that she couldn't seem to do anything about, and the grey carpet was shabby – dangerously threadbare in places, as she found every time she got a toe hooked in it, and the walls seemed too bare and far too white, except the one which was teal, which all of a sudden seemed like a ridiculous colour for a wall. She'd had big plans for the place – to fill it with big posters, cosy armchairs and lush, healthy plants – but before she'd got around to more than sorting out the bedroom, buying a rather scrappy-looking red sofa, and a paint charm on the lounge walls, her cosy life of DIY and interior decorating spells had been catapulted away and replaced by one where the state of her carpet was the very last thing on her mind.

Until now. She wanted Remus to like it, she wanted him to feel at home, even though she was sure that her clutter and her music and her trashy paperbacks weren't really the kind of things he'd have around him normally.

She fluffed the miss-matched, multi-coloured cushions on the sofa, and lit the fire, thinking that that would have to do, and that at least with flames dancing in the grate, it looked a great deal cosier and more inviting.

She ran a hand over her black V neck jumper, hoping that it looked alright, and then experimentally fingered the ends of her new, poker straight, strawberry blonde hair. She'd seen a Muggle woman at lunchtime with the exact same look – it was one she'd never really tried before, but the colour had made the woman's dark eyes sparkle in contrast, and she hoped it would do the same for her. She thought it was more normal than a lot of her other looks, but not so normal as to be boring. Or so she hoped.

There was a soft knock on the door and she smiled at the thought that Remus was standing on the other side, even though she knew it was a ridiculous thing to smile at.

He beamed at her as she opened the door. "Hello," he said. She swallowed, hoping it would dislodge her heart from where it had taken up residence in her throat. She wondered when he'd stop making her nervous, and then thought that she hoped he never would.

"Wotcher," she said. "Come in."

He stepped over the threshold and she closed the door behind him. "This is new," he said, gesturing to her hair.

"You like?" she said, tilting her head to one side and eyeing him inquisitively.

"Very much," he said. He hesitated for a moment as if he wasn't quite sure what to do, and then leant in and placed a lingering kiss on her cheek. "But then, there may be just a very slight chance that I'm biased," he whispered in her ear, "because I always think you look lovely."

He pulled back and smiled at her, and she dissolved into a nervous and rather breathy giggle. She sneaked a look at him, drinking in all the details of him at once, as if it had been weeks since she'd seen him instead of two days. She took in how his hair fell into his eyes and how they sparkled beneath it, and how one side of his collar was tucked inside the neck of his dark green V neck, while the other wasn't. She thought she should probably say something instead of just musing on how adorably dishevelled he looked, the only problem being that she couldn't really think of anything else.

She didn't think she'd ever been – or ever would be – a particularly gifted hostess, but her mother had impeccable manners and a houseful of guests on regular occasions, so she decided to borrow a phrase or two. "Make yourself at home," she said, indicating that he should take his overcoat off. He complied and she took his coat from him and hung it up behind the door, liking the way his coat looked next to hers and savouring the smell of fresh, cold air that he seemed to have brought in with him.

"If you could pretend you can't see the mess," she said, nervously gesturing at the flat vaguely with a wave of her hand, "I'd appreciate it."

"I live with Sirius," he said, inclining his head towards her and fixing her with a sceptical look. "If you can see the carpet, it's not a mess."

"Still," she said. "I _was_ going to tidy up, but I didn't finish work until ten minutes ago so I didn't really have chance."

"Anything wrong?" he asked, his brow furrowed.

"Yes," she said, pouting slightly. "Bloody Kingsley. He's on duty tonight, so I said I wouldn't mind taking a bit of his paperwork so he could leave on time. Turns out we have slightly different ideas about what constitutes _a bit_ of paperwork. And I got the mother of all paper cuts on one of his stupid files."

He smiled at her kindly, gesturing for her to give him her hand. She extended her injured thumb for inspection, and he took her hand in his and raised an eyebrow at it. "Surely you could've healed that?" he said.

"Hmm," she said dubiously, enjoying the flicker in her stomach that his touch produced. "Small healing spells not exactly my speciality. Give me a nice broken nose or twisted ankle and I'm well away, but anything that requires any lightness of touch and I tend to make it worse. I'd probably have severed it."

"Do you want me to do it?"

She nodded at him and he took out his wand and tapped it lightly on her thumb, making the paper cut disappear with the slightest of tingles. "Better?"

"Thanks," she said. "I knew you'd be handy to have around."

"Yes, but don't go breaking a leg or anything," he said, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her thumb lightly. "I'm still squeamish."

She let out a soft breath of laughter, and he gave her a rather devilish smile, hooked the fingers of his other hand under the buckle of her belt and pulled her to him, taking her by the waist when she was close enough and depositing her hand on his shoulder. She raised an eyebrow at him in question, although she had no intention of protesting. "You invited me over for dinner or something," he said in explanation, tilting his head down a little and meeting her eyes with a certain twinkle in his. He lowered his voice to a flirty, conspiratorial whisper. "I thought I'd have the or something."

"Did you now?"

He reached up and brushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear before his hand settled on her neck. "I have had a very long and tiresome day," he said, stroking her jaw gently with his thumb, "and the thought of doing this with you was the only thing stopping me from putting my own hands around my throat and ending it all."

Butterflies, hundreds of them, jostled for position in her stomach.

"What happened?"

"Have you ever spent twelve hours locked in an enclosed space with Mad-Eye Moody?" Remus said, closing his eyes briefly at the thought. "I'm paranoid, and twitchy, and if I ever hear the words 'constant vigilance' again…."

"Oh," she said softly, raising herself up on her toes. "In that case, we'd better do something to take your mind off it. Help you relax a bit." She slid her hands up to his neck and he guided her lips to his.

He sighed against her mouth and pulled her closer, kissing her thoroughly as his hand slid from her waist, up her spine and into her hair, making her shiver. When he pulled away she felt ever so slightly dizzy. "Better?" she said in a voice that was so barely there she wondered if he'd even hear it.

"Much," he said, grinning as he released her. "Anyway," he said. He turned to his coat and rummaged in one of the pockets, before tapping whatever it was he'd found with his wand. "I took the liberty of liberating these from Grimmauld," he said, turning back to her and holding out a bottle of wine and a tub of ice cream. "I realise flowers are more traditional," he said, "but you did say you weren't one for romantic clichés."

"Wow," she said, grinning. "You can come again."

Wine and ice cream, she thought, were far better than flowers. He smiled at her, and she took the wine from him and indicated that he should follow her to the kitchen with a jerk of her head. "This isn't more of that weird Eastern European celery stuff is it?" she said, carefully avoiding all the toe-catching threadbare patches. She didn't really want to ruin the mood by falling flat on her face.

"Celery stuff?" he said.

"The one we were drinking on New Year's Eve. Did you not think it tasted a bit like celery?"

"Ah yes," he said. "I did think it had something of the salad about it. This, however, is French and consequently, should be very pleasant. However, it is made from a grape I've never heard of and Kreacher gave it up without a fight, so I wouldn't count on it."

She turned to face him, leaning on the work surface. "So you're an expert on wine as well as beer?" she said.

"I know how to drink it, if that counts," he said, leaning on the doorframe and watching as she set the bottle down and cast a chilling charm over it.

He handed her the ice cream, and she turned it over to see what flavour it was. "It's the strawberry one with the little chocolate hippogriffs in it," he said, with a slightly embarrassed smile. "It was that or vanilla, and I really didn't think you were a vanilla kind of girl."

"No?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him in challenge, even though he was right. "Given it a lot of thought, have you?"

"Mad-Eye Moody," he said. "Twelve hours. After eight I'd have started a conversation with my own feet had it not been for the fact that I was so cold I couldn't feel them any more."

She cast a freezing charm over the ice cream and turned to face him. "What on earth have you been doing?"

"We had a tip-off about a Death Eater meeting this week," Remus said. "Moody and I are checking out some likely venues, placing some detection spells and the like. I'd have been happy with that, but he insisted that we scope the place out properly since, _apparently_, neither of us had anything better to do today than sit in a deserted barn and freeze to death."

She felt a sudden and rather unexpected jolt of panic at the thought of him doing something so potentially dangerous, before realising that the fact that he was standing in her kitchen looking neither injured nor perturbed by what he had been doing meant that the jolt was completely unnecessary. "Did anything happen?" she asked.

"A spider kept trying to build a web on Moody's hat," Remus said. "Watching him try and catch it was quite entertaining. Apart from that, no."

"You've had a pretty miserable day, then?" she said, and he gave her a lopsided smile that melted her insides.

"It seems to have picked up."

She met his eyes and smiled, and the moments passed. Thinking that if she didn't say something soon they'd just stand in the kitchen looking at each other all night, she scratched around for something, anything, to say. "I'd offer you a tour," she said, "but this place is so small I'm not sure it's worth it."

"Show me anyway," he said, and she smiled, wondering what on earth she'd been nervous about. He always seemed to find a way to put her at ease.

"Well," she said, "this is the kitchen." She waved at it unnecessarily, and then backed him into the lounge. "And this is the lounge, dining room thing – although obviously I haven't got a dining table yet." She wondered too late if that made her sound disorganised and immature – surely a proper grown up would have a dining table? She chanced a glance in Remus' direction to find him waiting patiently for her to continue, looking not in the least bit concerned that she didn't have the correct furniture. "And that's the bedroom and the bathroom," she said, gesturing to the two doors on the opposite wall, through which just the corner of the bath and bed could be glimpsed. "Like I said, it's pretty small," she added, leaning on the windowsill next to her bookcase, which was stuffed full of CDs, and books she never seemed to have the time to read. His eyes darted briefly about the room before returning to hers.

"It's very nice," he said. "Have you lived here long?"

"Since I finished training," she said. "Can't you tell from all the clutter?"

"Ah," he said, "it's not clutter if you know what it is. I assume you can account for this?" He pointed to a mug on the windowsill that she'd been meaning to wash up for about six months.

"Mouldy coffee mug," she said, reluctantly.

"And this?" he said, pointing to a small see-through plastic dome with a tiny, red brick, house in it.

"Christmas present from my nan," she said. "I'm not entirely sure what it is but she seemed very keen that I should have it and if you turn it upside down all this white stuff swirls around. I think it's supposed to be snow."

"And this?" he said, gesturing to a red plant pot that housed nothing more exciting than a couple of shrivelled twigs.

"Used to be a cheese plant. I keep meaning to buy something to replace it – something less fussy about being watered."

"See?" he said. "No clutter at all."

"You're quite the expert."

"Oh yes," he said. "Personally, I'm very fond of leaving myself notes which seem of critical importance when I write them and that two days later I can't fathom for the life of me. And, of course, I have a slight fondness for books."

"Slight?" she said, making a point of sounding astonished. "For the first couple of months I knew you I thought you had books for hands."

He raised an eyebrow at her and waved at the bookshelves that practically creaked under the not inconsiderable weight of her record collection. "I suppose you think there's nothing wrong with owning this many records?" he said.

"Nothing at all," she said suppressing a giggle in favour of a flirty look. "I would put one on, but I wouldn't want you to have to use the word 'racket'."

His eyebrow inched higher. "I daresay you've got something I can stand," he said, shooting her a playfully sardonic look. "Statistically speaking it seems unlikely that you wouldn't."

"Browse away," she said, her giggle finally overtaking her as her stomach tightened, and he moved in front of the bookcase, studying the shelves intently.

"So what do you like?" she asked. "Music-wise, I mean."

"I'm afraid I'm terribly out of date," he said, his eyebrows twitching between a frown and pleased surprise as his eyes scanned the rows of strictly alphabetised CDs.

"How out of date?"

"Well for a start, the last time I bought a record it was a record, and since then I believe there's been not one, but two changes in Muggle technology – cassettes and now these newfangled CD thingies, the operation of which really just defeats me. They're so tiny and fiddly. Where's the needle supposed to go?"

"You are joking."

"Yes," he said, glancing at her in amusement as he selected a CD from her shelf, expertly removed it from its case and placed it in the open drawer of her CD player. "I'm not _that_ out of date, although it is true that I haven't actually bought a record since 1979."

He pressed play and the opening strains of her favourite Joni Mitchell album swirled around them. "Good choice," she said, impressed that he hadn't picked something traditionally romantic to try and engineer some kind of mood.

"Thank you," he said. "I always rather liked her."

"Really?"

"You can't have honestly thought I'd be an upbeat bubblegum pop man?" he said, and she laughed. The image of him sitting alone somewhere listening to Joni Mitchell with a book in his lap seemed all very fitting. "Sirius and James were always unwaveringly hip," he said. "I always preferred something a bit more, I don't know, subtle, I suppose, something lasting. Although 'bloody awful' and 'depressing' were their preferred terms," he added with a faint chuckle.

"Would this qualify as dreary werewolf music, then?"

"I'm afraid so," he said. "I have moped to this record on many occasions."

"Are you going to mope to this tonight?"

"I was rather hoping you wouldn't give me cause to," he said, eying her impishly and causing her stomach to twist, "although for a man like me, a mope is only ever a heart-beat away."

"Well," she said, "luckily for you I have plenty of dreary werewolf music to accompany it, should the need arise."

"So I see," he said, waving at her shelves. "I thought you liked – " he paused for a moment, staring at the ceiling for inspiration which never came, " – you know, I'm so old, I don't even know what the word is for the kind of music you like."

"Garage rock?" she offered. "Lo-fi? Punk?"

He considered her with a raised eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile. "Really, Tonks, you could be speaking Troll for all I know," he said, and she allowed herself a small chuckle at his expense, which he didn't seem to mind at all.

"You like mostly Muggle stuff?" she said.

"Hmm," he said. "There used to be a programme on the WWN devoted to Muggle music, which my father listened to without fail, and I suppose I just got used to it."

She loved hearing little details about his life, being able to slowly piece together who he was. "What was it anyway?" she asked. "The record you bought in 1979?"

"You've probably never heard of it," he said.

"Try me."

"It was called Ever Fallen In Love – "

"With Someone That You Shouldn't've?" she said, pulling her Buzzcocks compilation out and handing it to him. He gave her a nod of vague surprise and approval.

"Not my usual thing at all," he said, "but, owing to the rather hopeless romantic situation I found myself in, it rather caught my imagination."

"Do you want me to put it on?"

"Only if you want to see me curl into a ball and cry like a girl," he said, handing it back to her and raising his eyebrow.

"Normally I like to save that until I've broken up with someone," she said, neatly filing the CD back on the shelf. He met her gaze with a flirtatious twinkle in his eye.

"I knew you were a heart-breaker," he said, and she pushed the butterflies it created aside for long enough gave him a playful shove.

"Are you hungry?" she said. He nodded, and she closed her fingers around his and dragged him the three strides it took them to get to the kitchen.

"So what are we having?" he said, eying the kitchen equipment her Muggle nan had bought her over the years with a slightly puzzled expression.

"I thought I'd leave that up to you," she said, dropping his hand when she realised, with a quite considerable pang of self-consciousness, that she was still holding it, "since I'm mostly counting on you to cook it."

"Me?" he said, his eyes wide.

"Yes," she said warily. "You can cook, can't you?"

"Er, no," he said, eying the ceiling. "Not really."

"No?"

"Why do you look so surprised?"

"I'm not," she said, realising that the astonished look on her face meant that he wouldn't need to be a particularly skilled Legilimens to know she was lying. "Well alright, I am. You just seem like, you know, the type that'd be able to throw together a seven course meal from a tin of Spam and half a mouldy lettuce."

"Do I?"

His turn to look astonished.

"I just assumed – " she said. "You can't have thought that _I'd_ be useful in the kitchen?"

"I thought, perhaps, you'd been hiding that light under a bush."

"Oh," she said. "Then I think we have a slight problem."

"Nonsense," he said, pressing his lips together against a grin. "We're two fully grown and perfectly intelligent people. I'm sure we'll come up with something."

"Well," she said, waving at the kitchen even though she didn't share his confidence, "be my guest."

He gestured towards the cupboards. "May I?" She leant on the doorframe and nodded, and he bent down, opened a cupboard at random and peered inside. He closed the door, looked confused, and opened another. He examined the contents for a moment, and then looked perplexed. "Is there some kind of system?" he said.

"Yes," she said, laughing. "Anything I might be able to use in a potion is in that one," she said, gesturing to the cupboard he'd opened first, "anything I can eat without cooking is in that one," she said, pointing to the one nearest where she was standing, "and everything else is in the one with all the dust on it."

"Well that makes sense," Remus said. He knelt on the floor, opened the everything else cupboard, and disappeared behind the door. "Pasta?" he said, retrieving a packet of spaghetti from the cupboard. She nodded and he tossed it to her. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow in thought, and then disappeared behind the door again. "And tomatoes?" he said, holding out a can.

"I think I have cheese somewhere," she said. "That's almost a meal."

"We'll need something else for the sauce," he said.

"Like what?"

"Something herby?" he said. "Garlic, perhaps?"

"Hmm," she said. "I think I've got some somewhere."

She knew she should probably help him to find things, but she liked to watch him when he was occupied with a task. He did everything so deliberately, so precisely, that watching him was a bit like watching a cat – even if she didn't know what he was doing it was fascinating. Remus opened the everything else cupboard and she could hear him moving things around inside it. He came out empty-handed. He opened the eat without cooking cupboard and peered into it, looking perplexed. "Are there potions with garlic in them?" he said.

"Only about two dozen," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "Did you never make the Vampire Detection potion?"

"No," Remus said. "I dropped Potions as soon as I could. The only thing I've ever successfully made in a cauldron is tea."

"Why would you make tea in a cauldron?" she said.

"Lack of better things to do with it?" he offered. "I used it as a door stop for a while, but it seemed such a waste." He looked so adorably sheepish that she had to bite her lip to resist the urge to reach forward and ruffle his hair. Instead, she stepped around him and reached into the potion ingredients cupboard, selecting a bulb of garlic from the rack on the inside of the door and presenting it to him with a flourish.

He got to his feet and fixed her with an amused look. "See?" he said. "We're perfectly capable of making dinner."

"Do you want to make the sauce or the pasta?"

"I don't mind," he said. "You choose."

"Pasta," she said. "That's just boiling water, isn't it? I shouldn't be able to go too far wrong with that."

Twenty minutes later, Tonks peered into the pan to find the water gone and a congealed white mess of pasta strings in its place. The pan shook ominously. "Remus?" she said, and he looked up from the sauce he had been intently stirring for the last few minutes. "I don't think this looks quite right."

She stepped back to allow him to peer into the pan, and they exchanged a dubious look. "Hmm," she said. There was something she'd seen Molly do which might work…. "Maybe if I – " She pointed her wand at the contents, and muttered the incantation. There was a small explosion, and Tonks ducked instinctively, cowering on the floor as a whooshing sound engulfed the kitchen, followed by a series of plops.

She winced, and then looked up. There was spaghetti on the ceiling. There was spaghetti raining down on the floor. She screwed her eyes shut and hoped that what had happened hadn't happened. She looked up, and her worst suspicions were confirmed.

Remus had spaghetti in his hair.

Oh hell.

She silently wished that the floor would open up and swallow her, but she knew from bitter experience that it wouldn't.

She straightened up, glancing at the ceiling, where a couple of strands were dangling precariously close to the top of Remus' head and slowly peeling away towards descent. She warily met his eye, which was only slightly obscured by two pale strands of pasta.

"See?" he said. "Perfectly capable."

She covered her mouth with both of her hands, desperately trying to hold in her laughter, and failing. She collapsed against the counter, clutching her side and guffawing through the fingers of one hand. He stared at her with a raised eyebrow for a few seconds, and then joined in with a slight chuckle that turned into a sigh.

She stepped towards him and pulled a couple of strands off his shoulders and flicked them towards the sink. "It suits you," she said, sniggering into the back of her hand. "Brings out the annoyance in your eyes."

"I daresay," he said, his lips twitching in the effort of controlling what she hoped was a smile before he took out his wand and vanished the lot. "Why don't you try the sauce?" he said, a rather mischievous smile on his lips as he levitated the pan towards her, swaying it dangerously. She dodged it, and he swung it back onto the stove without spilling a drop.

She met his eye apologetically, holding his gaze for a moment and wondering what to do, and what he thought. He didn't seem particularly fazed by what she'd done or even particularly annoyed – rather more quietly amused, for which she was extremely grateful.

"Me and kitchens don't really mix," she said. "Sorry."

He took a step towards her with a dangerously flirty glimmer in his eyes, and then gingerly placed his hands on her hips and eased her closer to him. She suddenly forgot how to breathe. "How sorry?" he said slowly, smiling.

"Very, very sorry," she said, winding her arms around his neck.

"Prove it."

She kissed him as softly and apologetically as she could, at least at first. After a couple of minutes she decided that kisses couldn't be apologetic and decided to do it properly. He didn't protest. She pulled away slowly and opened her eyes to meet his. "Am I forgiven?"

"Not _quite_," he said, hooking his fingers under her chin and lifting her lips back to his for a rather more insistent and sexy kiss.

"How about now?" she asked, hoping that the answer was no.

"Hmm," he said. "I think so." He met her eye briefly and then gave her a rather sly smile. "There is, however, the small matter of buying my silence."

"Oh," she said, pressing her lips back to his. The only thing she could think was that she rather liked being blackmailed by Remus, and that if kisses like this were the reward for covering him in foodstuffs, she might even take to cooking more often.

He gave her a final soft kiss and then pulled back slightly, although he didn't release her from his grip.

"So what are we going to do?" she said, in the most apologetic tone she could muster through a grin that seemed inescapably linked to having his arms around her and standing so close she could feel his heartbeat.

"How about we try that Muggle pub on the corner?" he said. "They might do food."

"Oh no," she said. "I can't go there."

"Why not?"

She pursed her lips and tried to think of a convincing lie. She didn't really want to tell him about the time she'd had slightly too much to drink, fallen down the stairs and exposed her underwear to the entire place. "Can we just leave it at I can't?" she said. He raised an eyebrow at her and shook his head. "If you tell me what you did after a whole bottle of Firewhiskey," she said, "I'll tell you what I did the last time I went there."

"In that case I'm open to suggestion," he said.

"Since it's my fault you were wearing dinner," she said, "I think I should probably keep my suggestions to myself, don't you?"

He hummed in thought for a moment, and then gave her a nod of amused agreement, before tightening his arms around her and resting his chin on her forehead. "Well," he said against her hair, "the way I see it, we have several options. One, we try again with the rest of the pasta –"

"Possibly dangerous," she said, enjoying the vibrations of his words on her scalp. "Definitely foolish."

"Quite," he replied. "Two, we just eat the sauce –"

"Messy," she said. "And we'd still be hungry."

"In deed. Three, you tell me what you did in the pub that means you can never go back and I decide if it's bad enough to be a legitimate excuse – "

"Nice try," she said, leaning back to meet his eye. He raised an eyebrow at her to say that she couldn't blame him for trying, and she settled her forehead back against his chin.

"Or four," he said softly, "you leave me to it."

"I thought you said you couldn't cook?"

"When I said that," he said, pressing a kiss against her hairline with a smile evident on his lips, "I didn't realise _quite_ the scale we were grading on."

She let out a soft chuckle and he moved back a little and smiled at her good-naturedly. She wondered how it was that he could make fun of her without ever making her feel stupid. He always made her feel as if he was on her side, somehow, as if every stupid, clumsy thing she did was a joke they were sharing. She never felt like he was laughing _at_ her, but rather that they were both laughing at the world and how it got in her way, and the more time she spent with him, the more she liked it.

"I think I can manage something," he said. "Assuming you don't mind me commandeering your kitchen for ten minutes?"

"Of course I don't," she said. "If it's a choice between that and telling you what I did in The Swan and Rushes, I'll take the commandeering any day."

"That bad?" he said, his eyes twinkling. "I might just have to get you drunk and try and make you talk. Now," he said, placing another soft kiss on her forehead, "why don't you sit down, open the wine and make a start on that drunkenness?"

Tonks did as she was told, thinking it was probably the safest option. She curled her feet up underneath her on the sofa and sipped her wine and before long, Remus appeared and held out a plate to her. It seemed to have some kind of monster sandwich on it. She took it from him, grinning. "What is it?"

"This," he said, sitting down on the opposite end of the sofa, "is my speciality. Or it would be if I could cook enough things to have a speciality."

"You really can't cook?"

"Not really," he said. "I can do things on toast, and sandwiches, and anything that tells you how to cook it in the name. Mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, roast potatoes – "

"So it's mainly potatoes?"

"I've experimented with roast parsnips and boiled carrots," he said.

"That's it?"

"And these," he said, gesturing to his plate.

"And this is?"

"Fried egg, bacon and chilli sauce sandwich."

"That sounds – "

"Disgusting, I know," he said, saving her the trouble of finding a way to say the same thing diplomatically. "But it's surprisingly nice."

She eyed the sandwich warily. It's contents seemed strangely at odds with the way he'd cut it into neat triangles, and in a moment of poetic-ness she wasn't nearly drunk enough to justify, she thought it rather summed him up – the Marauder filling and the neat, orderly, Professor finish. She suppressed a titter at the thought. "What do you think?" he said. "Are you game?"

She raised half of her sandwich to her lips, and he did the same with his.

"I'll try anything once," she said.

"Really?" he said, meeting her eye with an intensely flirty look that gripped her stomach and squeezed it. "Interesting," he said, looking down and smirking as he took a bite.

She realised what she'd said, and what his look was implying, and swallowed the mouthful of sandwich she had only half-chewed. "You really do have the smuttiest mind of anyone I know," she said, chuckling at him before taking another bite.

"All I said was 'Really? Interesting'," he said, his look half-flirtation and half-innocent protest.

"I could tell what you were thinking."

"Oh dear Merlin I hope not," he said, his eyes wide with horror.

"See?" she said, laughing. He fixed his expression into a picture of innocence that came a little too easily.

"Naturally, what I meant was that what I was thinking was frightfully boring, and I wouldn't want you to think me dull."

"Of course it was."

He glanced at her, his eyes crinkling in the corners with amusement, and then gestured to what was left of his sandwich. "So what do you think?" he said.

"Surprisingly good," she said. "I like it."

"I used to make them all the time," he said. "It's the perfect hangover cure."

"I thought you had those wonder mint things?"

"Oh well they're only for moderate drunkenness," he said. "If you're too drunk when you take one, they're completely ineffectual until you've sobered up to a suitable level. And of course if you're too drunk to remember to eat one, they're absolutely no use at all. That's where one of these comes in."

His expression was rather impish, and she thought that she probably couldn't have resisted it if her life depended on it. Still, she thought, not resisting Remus would certainly be a rather pleasing way to go. "I'm beginning to think you might have had a rather miss-spent youth," she said.

"Only beginning to think?" he said. "I can't have been telling it right."

"Well," she said, "you've got the rest of the evening to set the record straight."

"I had much more interesting plans than that," he said, brushing the crumbs off his fingers.

"_Really_?" she said, with as much sarcastic surprise as she could muster.

"Yes," he said, reaching for his wine glass. "I thought we'd play Scrabble."

"Scrabble?" she said.

"Yes," he said, registering the disappointment on her face, looking away and smiling. "See? Frightfully dull."

Two hours later, she found out that he hadn't been joking. At least not about the Scrabble. She was, however, finding him anything but frightfully dull, even though the evening wasn't exactly going the way she thought it would. They'd chatted about nothing in particular and taken it in turns to choose what to listen to – she'd liked everything he'd chosen, which she supposed was inevitable since he was choosing from her records – but anyway, she did, and she'd insisted on playing him some records recorded after 1979 that he might like, and he'd confessed to not completely hating one of them.

Then he'd laid down the challenge of a game, knowing full well, she suspected, that she couldn't refuse a challenge. It _might_ have been the wine, or it _could_ have been the way he was sitting, facing her cross-legged on the sofa and looking adorable, but dull was the furthest word from her mind. The flirting _definitely_ had something to do with it. She'd never really known anything like it – it was as if he could make anything sound suggestive – and he had given her a series of very intrusive romantic thoughts that were well and truly putting her off her game.

"That's not a word," she said. He raised his eyebrow at her in challenge and summoned the dictionary, then waved his wand over it until it fell open at the correct page and held it out to her. "Inveterate," he said, "fixed in a habit or practice, especially a bad one, as in 'Sirius Black is an inveterate tart'."

She made a noise of vague surprise, although she wasn't entirely sure why. She'd challenged about half of his words and they'd all turned out to be above board. "How come you know so many odd words?" she said.

"Rubbish with girls," Remus said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Ergo I spend a lot of time reading."

She raised an eyebrow back at him to let him know that she didn't believe him for a second. "And there I was thinking you pursued knowledge for its own sake," she said, laying her tiles down on the board, which he'd charmed to float just above the sofa seat between them.

"I expect you're horribly disappointed in me," he said, squinting at his tiles and then laying them slowly down on the board before turning it round so she could read it.

"Bandoline?"

"Yes," he said, "were you to boil quince pips and make it into something you could use to set your hair in place, you would call it bandoline."

"You're making that up."

He looked vaguely affronted at the very suggestion and tossed her the dictionary. She didn't even bother to look the word up. It was too humiliating to keep challenging his unusual words only to have him read her the definition or hand the dictionary to her so she could read them herself. She had a sneaking suspicion that he was so far in the lead it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

She crossed her legs underneath her and leant forward, resting her elbows on her knees and peering at the tiles she'd charmed to float at eye height. "And that's not going to work," he said. For a minute she thought he was talking about her levitation charm, but that didn't seem to make sense. It was working perfectly.

"What?"

"Trying to distract me," he said, taking a sip of his wine.

"Distract you?"

"By leaning forward so I can see down your jumper. It's not going to work."

"I'm not trying to – "

She looked down at her offending cleavage, which did seem _slightly_ more prominent than it did usually. "It's your own fault for looking," she said, spelling out a word on the board with her tiny cream tiles.

"Utricide?" he said, his eyebrows dropping in thought.

"You're not the only one who reads."

"What does it mean?" he said, looking vaguely impressed that he had to ask.

"Someone who stabs inflated pockets of skin," she said, thanking her dad's obsession with one day finishing _The Sunday Times_ crossword for gifting her with a couple of unusual words that might impress Remus. She felt sure she'd only remembered this one because it was so fascinatingly disgusting, which was probably less impressive. She decided not to mention it.

"Why would anyone..?" he said, his tone appalled. He recovered his composure enough to shoot her a flirty smile. "And I wasn't looking."

"Maybe they like the popping sound," she said. "And you were," she added, returning his flirty smile and reaching for her wine glass.

Remus' jaw tightened with suppressed amusement, and then he frowned at the board for a minute. "Eutrapely," he said, placing his tiles. "Before you ask, it means pleasantness in conversation. And I wasn't."

"I know what it means," she said, even though it was a lie. "And yes you were, otherwise you wouldn't have known there was anything to see." She placed her tiles and looked up, raising an eyebrow at him and biting her lip against a smile.

"If you didn't want me to look, you shouldn't have leant so far forward," he said, returning her smile.

"So you admit you were looking?"

Remus' lips twitched, and then he pressed them together, his eyes fixed on the tiles in front of him. "No," he said. "I don't."

"Clavus?" she said, reading his tiles as he placed them.

"It means a pain in the – " He met her eyes with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and she treated him to a sarcastic smile in return. " – forehead."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he chuckled. "What's the score, anyway?" she said. She kept asking him periodically, even though he was beating her by a considerable margin. He considered the score sheet momentarily.

"Despite your attempt at _very_ unsporting diversionary tactics," he said, "I do appear to have eked out a small lead."

"Unsporting?" she said, considering her tiles. "What about you getting me drunk?"

"You're not drunk," he said. "You haven't said anything even remotely poetic."

"Maybe I would if you'd stop staring down my top."

"I have not been staring – "

"Pervert."

"What?"

He looked genuinely startled for a moment until she gestured to the tiles she'd just placed on the board. She'd cheated and charmed a couple of letters in her selection when he wasn't paying attention, but it had been worth it to see the look on his face. She looked up, laughing, and saw that his jaw was tight with the effort of not joining in, even though his eyes had given up the fight and were dancing with amusement. "You cheated," he said.

"Yep," she said. "Since you're winning by about three hundred points, I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Hmm," he said, laying down some tiles and settling for a rather paltry, by his standards, fourteen points. "In return, will you concede that I wasn't looking?"

"No."

"Well I wasn't."

"And why not?" she said, laying her tiles. "What's the point of me wearing something like this if you're not even going to look? Ooh, a double word score. Am I winning now?"

"No," he said. "So now you want me to look?"

She raised her hands defensively. "I'm just saying."

"Fair enough," he said, leaning forward to lay his tiles in the furthest corner of the board. He fixed his eyes on hers momentarily, and then, rather obviously, she thought, swept them down her neck to the opening of her jumper. He looked back up again almost immediately. "Very nice," he said, smirking slightly into his wine glass. She pretended to be more interested in the word he'd placed.

"Deasil?" she said. "Sounds like some kind of small rodent. And thank you."

"Actually, it means clockwise," he said. "And I assure you it was my pleasure."

The air between them seemed to thicken, making it difficult to breathe at something approaching a normal rate. She wondered if it was possible that what she was thinking had somehow leaked into the air, making it thick with flirty suggestion.

Remus took the final three tiles and the game finished in a flurry of two and three letter words, leaving her thinking that she'd probably never think of Scrabble in the same way ever again. "So did I win?" she said.

He considered her for a moment, his head cocked slightly as he thought. He tilted his chin down before answering. "That depends _entirely_ on which game you're referring to," he said.

"The Scrabble."

"It's the taking part that counts," he said.

"That's just your polite way of saying no, isn't it?" she said, and he laughed. "Serves me right, I suppose," she said, "for agreeing to play someone who spends ninety per cent of his time with his nose in a book."

"Ninety-five. Are you going to sulk?"

"Yes."

"Will it help if I promise to let you humiliate me at chess at some point?"

"It might," she added, grinning. She didn't really want him to think she was a bad loser.

He smiled at her genially as he packed the board away neatly, and when he settled back against the sofa she shifted towards him a little. "How about the other game?" she said. He raised an eyebrow at her and considered his response.

"Let's call that a draw, shall we?"

She held his gaze for a moment and all the air seemed to disappear from the room. She wondered how it was that words and glances could seem to make the very air between them change. "So what do you want to do now?" she said.

"Ice cream?" he offered.

She nodded, and summoned the tub and a couple of spoons from the kitchen, and handed him one. She prised the lid off and offered the tub to him, shifting along the sofa so they could share more easily. At least it was an excuse for them to sit a bit closer together. "My mother would have a fit if she knew I hadn't put this in bowls," she said, resting her shoulder against his. She wondered if the shiver that shot through her was to do with the ice cream in her hand or the man she was sitting next to. She suspected the latter.

"Surely if she knew you were here with someone like me," he said, laying his fingers over hers to steady the tub as he nudged out a small chocolate Hippogriff with his spoon, "the fact that you're eating ice cream without a suitable receptacle would be the last thing on her mind."

"You don't know my mother," she said. "I offered her a biscuit out of the packet once – it was if I'd offered to boil her alive in lava. If I told her I was marrying a flobberworm her only concern would be what kind of food to serve at the reception."

Remus chuckled and turned towards her, resting one of his knees slightly on hers. "Have a hippogriff to make up for it," he said, offering her his spoon. She opened her mouth a little and he popped it onto her tongue.

"Fanks," she said.

"Odd that Sirius would be so fond of your mother if they're so different," he said, scraping his spoon across the surface of the ice cream and putting it rather delicately on his tongue the wrong way round.

"You know Sirius," she said, helping herself to a large spoonful and making sure to place her fingers over his around the container, even though she could have avoided them if she wanted. "He likes a rebel."

"Is that what it is?"

"Dunno," she said, and then fixed him with a cheeky sideways look. "I'll bring it up the next time he corners me for one of his big brother talks."

Remus looked slightly perplexed for a moment. "Big brother talks?"

"Oh yes," she said. "He insisted that we had a little chat this morning."

Remus let out a rather resigned and weary sigh and his forehead creased. "Did he say anything about me that I should know about?"

"He reiterated his advice about what I should do if you were inappropriate," she said. "He really does seem to think that at any moment you might turn into a sex pest. Why is that, do you think?"

She'd meant it as a flirty rhetorical question, but Remus seemed to be going to answer it anyway. "Well," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on the ice cream he was scraping onto his spoon. "I suspect it's largely because he remembers a particular spell I told him about when I was fifteen."

"A spell?"

"Mmm," Remus said, swallowing. "One that, at the time, he thought was hilariously amusing, and that now, in sober reflection, he wouldn't want to think about me using on his cousin."

"What kind of spell are we talking about?" she said. He smiled at her mischievously, his eyes glinting in the firelight.

"I'll show you, if you like," he said.

She considered it for a moment. She couldn't imagine that fifteen year old Remus would have known about anything really bad, or that grown up Remus would offer to show her something that would make her think too badly of him. "Go on, then," she said, setting the ice cream down on the floor and sticking their spoons in it. She drew her legs up underneath herself and turned to face him, waiting.

He laughed slightly nervously, as if he was about to do something against his better judgment, and then took out his wand. He gave it the briefest of flicks in her direction and the effect was instantaneous.

She let out a gasp of surprise as the clasp of her bra sprang apart and the two halves made for her armpits. One hand flew to her mouth in surprise, but she couldn't hold in her laughter, especially when she saw the guilty schoolboy expression he'd adopted. She crossed her arms across her jittering bosoms, thinking that laughing heartily without adequate support in a low cut V neck was probably not a good idea. "Can you do it back up again?"

"Not with my wand," he said slowly, biting his lip against a grin. "Why would a fifteen year old schoolboy go to the effort of learning a spell to help girls back into their underwear?"

"Good point," she said supporting her chest with one arm and scrabbling for the fastening through her jumper with the other, even though she knew she'd never be able to do it up one-handed. His eyes danced with amusement as he watched her struggle.

"I'd offer to help you manually," he said, taking a sip of his wine and then peering at her through his hair, "but I wouldn't want to be accused of being inappropriate."

She let out a snort of laughter and dug him in the arm with her elbow. She looked down at her _predicament_, noticing that the way she was holding her bosoms up with her arm meant that they were far more prominent than they had been at any point when they were playing Scrabble. She wondered how on earth she was going to get out of this. "Just close your eyes a minute," she said, and he put his glass down and duly obliged. She reached around her back and grabbed the two halves of the fastening.

He raised an eyebrow and opened one eye. She glared at him, and he chuckled and shut it again. She'd almost got it fastened when she saw his eyelid flicker again. She glared at him with renewed vigour, and his eyelid flickered closed while the rest of him shook with silent laughter. "If you peek again," she said. "I'll tell my cousin what you did to me."

"In that case," he said, and pressed his lips together as he brought both hands up to cover his eyes. "I'll be good. Promise."

"Alright," she said, when she'd finally got the fastening done up again and had re-arranged herself. "You can come out now."

He fixed her with a rather falsely sheepish look that she knew she probably shouldn't find adorable, but did. "I'm – "

"Don't bother trying to apologise," she said, "because I can tell you're not sorry."

He threw his head back and let out a full-bodied and rather breathy laugh. His whole body shook, and his face seemed to crumple and change – the lines of worry and fatigue it normally wore dissolved, and his expression was so young and alive that had it not been for the crinkling around his eyes, she'd have sworn he was fifteen again.

She'd never seen him laugh so hard at anything, and she found it impossible not to be completely captivated by it.

She loved seeing him like this. It was so completely different to how he normally behaved, and she had the feeling that she was being allowed to see something special, something he normally held back, a part of him he didn't show to everybody. The thought made her stomach tingle.

She rested her elbow on the back of the sofa and propped her head up on her hand while she watched him, savouring every detail of this new Remus, and waited for him to stop laughing. It was a lengthy wait – every time she caught his eye it seemed to set him off again, but eventually he subsided into an occasional snigger, and then just a smile remained.

He rested his elbow on the back of the sofa and his chin on his hand, breathing heavily against his knuckles as he watched her. "So tell me," she said, reaching for the ice cream. "How does a nice boy like you end up learning a spell like that?"

"Well," he said, shifting his knuckles away from his mouth. "When I was about to head off for my fifth year, my father decided to take me to one side and give me The Talk."

"The Talk?" she said, offering him the tub. He retrieved his spoon and scooped some ice cream out.

"About girls," he said. "About how I should always treat them with respect, open doors for them, tell them when they looked nice, that kind of thing," he paused and his eyebrows lifted, " – and that he didn't ever want to hear about me using one of those bra-unhooking spells he'd heard were all the rage with young people these days."

Tonks sniggered as she dug out a considerable spoonful of ice cream and tried to eat it delicately. "Of course I'd never heard of such a thing," he said, "so when I got back to school, out of curiosity, I told my friends and asked if they knew anything."

"And they, of course, told you they were disgusted with you and didn't want to hear any more about it."

"Naturally," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Eventually we figured it out. None of us wanted to try it on a real girl until we'd practised, and so Sirius stole a couple of bras – "

"From where?"

"I assumed the laundry," he said, "but with him, often it was best not to ask. We used to string them across the backs of chairs and practice, which, incidentally," he said, leaning in and lowering his voice as if imparting some highly sensitive nugget of knowledge, "is very dangerous. They ping everywhere if someone's not wearing them. I'm surprised one of us didn't lose an eye."

They took it in turns to scoop out spoonfuls of ice-cream for a few minutes until an idea occurred to Tonks. "Did you ever use it on a girl?" she asked. "Other than me, I mean."

"Only girls I was actually going out with," he said. She smirked at him. "What?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her with utmost seriousness. "Undoing a bra by hand is a very confusing and difficult thing for a teenage boy, especially if he only gets the chance to do it in a pitch black broom cupboard and he's got limited time available."

She laughed and he continued to stare at her, his expression set and serious for a few moments until he dissolved into laughter again. For some reason, she found the idea of Remus in a broom cupboard, wrestling with a girl's underwear highly amusing, especially when she pictured the girl with a stop watch, shouting 'come on, we're against the clock here!' as he fumbled.

"Did your dad ever find out?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I don't think so. Although – "

He paused and frowned at himself, as if he'd been about to spill a huge secret and had then remembered that he wasn't supposed to be saying anything. "What?" she asked tentatively.

"Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't his intention for me to figure out how to do it," he said, with the faintest trace of a smile. "Just before he died, he told me that his greatest wish – his only real ambition in life, had been to have to tell me off for doing normal teenage boy things." He glanced briefly at the ceiling before his eyes flickered back to hers, and he continued, smiling slightly to himself at the thought. "He said he'd always looked forward to lecturing me about getting drunk or falling in with a bad crowd or getting up to things I shouldn't have been getting up to with girls."

"I suppose you gave him plenty of opportunities?"

"A couple," he said, "for which he said he was very grateful."

Tonks smiled at him. "So Sirius _was_ right," she said. "You're a Marauder in more than name."

He considered it for a moment, biting his lip slightly and gazing down at the sofa.

"I – er – " he said. He looked up, smiling, and moved towards her slightly, taking her face in his hand, drawing her closer. "I like to think I have my moments," he said, breathing his words against her lips.

His kiss took her breath away. At first it had been a rather soft, flirtatious kiss, full of the warmth and playfulness of their conversation, but then it slowly became more intense and heady, making her feel rather giddy.

As his fingertips crept across her cheek they were slightly chilly from the ice cream they'd been holding, and she realised that she was still gripping the tub. He seemed to realise the same thing, taking it from her without breaking their kiss, and depositing it on the floor as he leaned back against the arm of the sofa, drawing her down with him. Her heart beat a fierce and frenetic pace in her chest, as if it was doing some kind of dance with quick steps and wild spinning that she would never have been able to manage.

She lifted her legs up onto the seat to mingle with his, leaning on him more heavily as she did so, steadying herself on his chest, and he slid down the arm of the sofa until his head was resting on it. Part of her couldn't quite believe that she was snogging Remus Lupin on a sofa – if someone had told her six months ago that this was what they'd end up doing, she'd have thought them severely confunded. She'd have said that he wasn't the type, that he wasn't _her_ type, and she'd have been very wrong on both counts.

They made the most of both having their hands free. She wanted to feel every inch of him, running her fingers down his long neck, across his shoulders and down his side, and her head span as his kiss intensified, his tongue finding hers, his hands on her face. She couldn't remember feeling anything quite like it – she was woozy with sensation, yet awake at the same time, her heart pounding and making her feel more alive than she thought anything ever would.

She dragged her lips away and pulled back just far enough to look at him, aware that he should probably be in slightly sharper focus. "I thought you said you had your moments?" she said. "Feels like more than a moment to me."

"Are you complaining?" he asked, raising his eyebrow at her in a flirtatious challenge.

"No."

"Good."

He gently pulled her down for another kiss. His lips skimmed hers producing the most delightful tingles, and the same sense of blissful drowsy awake-ness she'd had before overtook her. She couldn't stand it, and yet…. He kissed her loosely, his lips tracing hers, teasing hers, and she loved it. She pressed herself against him and he tightened his grip on her waist, holding her snugly against him.

His hands found their way just inside the hem of her jumper and the prickle of slightly cooler air at the base of her spine sent a thrill right through her. He pressed his fingertips lightly into her flesh, pulling her closer and then relaxing again, and the gentle pressure of his fingers made her stomach tighten and her skin tingle in anticipation of every touch.

He shifted out from underneath her, rolling her onto her back and settling against her side, his hand finding her hip, toying with the sliver of exposed skin between jumper and jeans. His fingers skirted over her hip bone and then over her arm and back up to her face. He kissed her a little more intently, his breath coming in snatches against her mouth and he made her dizzy with the speed and variety of sensations he was producing. He moved again, easing himself on top of her slightly, and she loved the weight of his body.

He pulled away slightly and met her eye, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something. However, apparently having had whatever question it was he wanted to ask answered by her eyes, he kissed her again.

There was something unexpectedly powerful about it, and it gave her goosebumps. She wondered why nobody had ever really kissed her like this before, if it was because he was older, because he'd simply had more practice. She'd been out with men who were certainly cockier, who put on a show of how not-fazed by her they were, but their kisses always gave them away for the scared little boys they were. Although Remus sometimes seemed nervous, unsure of himself – of her, even – she'd always liked his quiet, unassuming confidence – it was as if he was just sure enough of himself to let her see that she rattled him sometimes. And she liked that. She liked that a lot. His hands and his kisses and his movements against her were certain and purposeful, deliberate almost, and there was nothing nervous or tentative about them. She liked that too, probably even more.

He wound his fingers into her hair, his lips left hers and she let out a rather disappointed sigh, and opened her eyes. She met his gaze, and the smile in his eyes gave her goosebumps goosebumps. He lowered his head and placed a trail of incendiary kisses along her jaw before meeting her eye again, his eyebrows twitching playfully, and she was left with the impression that not only did he know exactly what he was doing to her, he wanted her to know that he knew.

He tugged her hair gently, moving her head back slightly, pulling the muscles in her neck taut. She felt his lips on the skin just below her ear and they were so soft and warm she was sure she couldn't stand it. She gasped as they moved away, and as he lowered his lips back down to her neck, she felt them curve into a smile against her skin before he kissed it.

His breath became hot and ragged against her skin as he made his way slowly down her neck, and when he reached her collarbone he paused, letting just the tip of his tongue dally on her skin before he kissed it. He re-traced the same, agonisingly slow path back up her neck, kissing her with just the right amount of pressure, his teeth just grazing her skin. She took in a sharp breath and then wound her fingers into his hair and dragged his mouth back up to hers.

His kisses made her insides see stars.

"Do you think Sirius would consider this inappropriate?" she said, forcing the words out between kisses.

"I'm damn sure he would," Remus replied in kind. "How about we don't tell him?"

Her murmur of agreement got lost between kisses, and neither of them missed it.

Eventually his kisses became slower and gentler and he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. His fingers danced lightly up and down her neck and along her collarbone, and when they parted he let out a tiny sigh that sounded a lot like contentment, which sent shivers through her body. He grinned at her with a rather sheepish dreamy look in his eyes.

"When my dear cousin and I had our chat this morning," she said, her voice little more than a whisper since she was only inches from his face, her fingertips resting on his jaw, "he did say it was always the quiet ones you had to watch."

Remus' chest shook with laughter. "What?" she said. He gazed at her, his lips curving into a rather guilty smile.

"I was just thinking that I'm hardly in any position to argue my case."

He moved slightly, settling her on his chest, wrapping his arms around her and softly kissing her forehead. She bit her lip and smiled against his jumper, wondering if she really wanted to ask about the mistletoe. She decided that she did, and that now, when he was trapped between her and the back of the sofa, was probably as good a time as any. "He also seems to think that you conjured the mistletoe we ended up standing under on Christmas Day just as an excuse to kiss me," she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice, and failing.

She glanced up to see his expression, to find his face had dissolved into another schoolboy grin. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to figure that out," he said, meeting her eye.

"So you did?" she said, propping herself up on his chest so she could look at him properly. He offered her a shifty smile by way of a reply. "Why?"

"Well," he said, softly. "I wasn't entirely sure how you felt." He threaded his fingers through her hair, watching it run through his fingers before meeting her eye again. "In fact, I had no idea, so I thought that if I kissed you under mistletoe, if you liked me, you'd make the most of the opportunity and kiss me back, and then I'd be able, armed with new knowledge, to do something else about it at a later date. And if you didn't," he paused and let out a soft sigh of amusement, "well, then, you probably would've just thought I was being friendly, or drunk, or festive – and you wouldn't hate me for doing it, or be too offended, or feel uncomfortable, because that's the very last thing I wanted."

He ran his fingers through the ends of her hair and gave her a rather nervous half-smile. "That's either really sweet or really devious," she said.

"Yes."

"Which is it?"

His smile widened. "I think that's rather more for you to decide, isn't it?" he said.

"Did you mean to be sweet, or devious?"

"Oh I always mean to be devious," he said quietly, watching her hair slide through his fingers, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Really? Did you have a devious plan for this evening?"

"Oh yes."

"Has it worked?"

He cast his eyes over her and where she was, and then met her eye with an askance glance and grinned. "What do you think?"

"I think," she said, cupping his face and steering it towards hers, "I like it when you're devious."

He let out a soft breath of laughter against her mouth before returning her kiss, and she sank down into him.

After a couple of deliciously long, teasing kisses, she nestled on his shoulder, watching the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. He ran his hand through her hair and then continued down her back, his hand finally coming to rest on her hip.

She wondered how someone who claimed to be rubbish with girls could be so good at – and then it hit her. That's exactly what Sirius had meant by card games. She laughed, and Remus leaned back, a rather intrigued and slightly startled expression on his face. "What?" he said.

"Nothing," she said. "Just – Sirius this morning. He said you were really good at card games but useless at knowing when to bet and how to fold – or something. I just realised that he meant this, and that he's right."

"Are we playing cards?" he said. "If we are I've never been more glad I refused Mundungus Fletcher's invitation to go to his place for a hand of Gin Rummy."

She gave him an admonishing poke in the ribs and he squirmed away from her fingers, laughing. "I'm flattered you think I'm good at – er – card games," Remus said. "To be honest I'm just glad they haven't changed the rules in my absence."

"Hmm," she said. "What about the part about you being useless at knowing when to bet and how to fold?"

"I suppose that would be a fairly fair summation of things," he said. "Whereas he will, of course, bet on anything, however unlikely it is to be a winning hand."

She shot him a confused look, and he grinned. "Is there some kind of book I can read to help me understand Marauder metaphors?"

"No," he said. "You're on your own there, I'm afraid."

"But it's not fair if you understand what he's saying and I don't."

"Yes it is," he said, leaning forward and kissing her on the nose. "I've had to put in years of practice."

"I suppose," she said, thinking that at least she'd figured it out eventually.

She settled back on his shoulder, and for what seemed like an age the only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire and his even breathing. She wondered when the CD she'd chosen had stopped playing, and found she couldn't even remember what it was.

He shifted down slightly and she felt his breath on the side of her face. "Are you ready to tell me how you embarrassed yourself in the pub on the corner yet?" he said softly.

"No," she said.

"Will you take a bribe?"

"No."

"A little coercion?"

"No."

"Honey trap?" he offered, his voice lilting with amusement.

"I still don't know what one of those is," she said. "I was thinking of asking Mad-Eye –"

"Don't you dare," he said, laughing. "At least if you do, keep my name out of it. It's bad enough having Sirius after me, let alone Mad-Eye."

They lapsed into silence again and he started tracing patterns she couldn't quite make out on her shoulder. She thought that soon she'd probably fall asleep and wondered what it might be like to wake up with his arms around her.

"I should get going," he said, nuzzling her temple and then placing a soft kiss there. "It's late," he mumbled into her hair.

"You don't have to," she said.

"I have to be back by midnight," he said.

She leant back far enough to look at him properly. "Why, will you turn into a pumpkin?"

"No," he said, chuckling softly. "Sirius said if I wasn't back by twelve he'd – now what was it?" His eyes searched the ceiling as he frowned in thought. "Ah, yes – hex my balls off," he said, his eyes flickering back to hers. "Call me shallow and cowardly if you like, but I've grown rather attached to them over the years, and I wouldn't put it past him."

"Why does he want you back by midnight specifically?" she said. "You've been here for hours. We could've been up to anything."

"I'll be sure to mention that," Remus said, raising an eyebrow at her. "It'll set his mind at rest."

She let out a rather breathy laugh. She supposed she could see why Sirius wouldn't find that comforting. "I'm sorry he's giving you a hard time," she said.

"I don't blame him," Remus said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as his eyes roved her face. "If you were my cousin I'd probably be telling me to keep my grubby mitts off you too."

"Did he actually use the phrase 'grubby mitts'?"

"No," Remus said. "I believe his actual words were 'filthy, lecherous werewolf paws'."

"What?"

She sat up a little straighter, incensed, but Remus chuckled. "It's alright," he said. "He's only joking. He's actually taking the whole thing rather better than I thought he would, which is not to say I wouldn't be grateful if you could mention – in passing – that I have, for the most part anyway, kept my filthy, lecherous werewolf paws to myself."

"I think I should probably stay out of it," she muttered, feeling a surge of guilt over what she'd said to Sirius that morning, which had no doubt been the cause of whatever rant he'd inflicted on Remus.

"Really?" he said. "Do I even want to ask why?"

Tonks bit her lip against a very large, and possibly rather cheeky, grin. "This morning, he said I should fully expect you to try and deviously seduce me."

"Right," he said with a rather wry half-smile.

"And I told him that if you tried, I wouldn't exactly protest."

"Oh," he said, his eyebrows making for his fringe, his eyes wide with surprise. "Well you could have said something earlier," he said, his face relaxing back into a mischievous smile. "I haven't got time now."

She laughed at the rather put-out tone of his voice, and he smiled. "So you do intend to at some point, then?" she said.

"I can't say the thought hadn't occurred to me. But," he said, reaching for her jaw and guiding her face back to his, "as you're so very fond of reminding me, I do have an _exceptionally_ smutty mind."

He kissed her slowly and far too briefly. "And now, I really do have to go, or Sirius _will_ hex my balls off and this whole discussion will become entirely academic."

She sat up reluctantly, and he did the same, sitting on the edge of the sofa and putting his shoes back on. He got to his feet and offered her his hand, pulling her up and leading her to the door. He pulled his coat on and she stepped closer and toyed with one of the buttons.

"When are we going to – I mean – " She stopped, not wanting to seem too clingy or needy and not really knowing how to phrase a question about when they were going to see each other again without sounding both. He saved her the trouble of finding the right words.

"I don't know," he said, raising his hand and running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "I'm tied up with either moons or Moody for most of this week. I'll see you on Sunday, though, certainly, for our trip on the Knight Bus."

"Right," she said, trying not to sound too disappointed, and she suspected, failing. Sunday just seemed so far away.

"There's every chance we'll run into each other before then," he said, tucking her hair behind her ear and ducking his head down so he could look her properly in the eye, "and if we do, I promise to try and do something to make you very pleased to see me."

"Really?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

He hummed his reply and added a suggestive half-smile. She wondered if it would be unethical to take a day off work, just so she could lurk in the corridors of Grimmauld Place and accidentally run into him on purpose.

He gave her a soft, lingering kiss and then pulled away regretfully. "Well," he said. "Thank you for having me over for dinner, or something. It has been – " He searched for the right word for a moment. " – memorable. In fact," he sad, tilting his chin down and peering at her through his fringe, "I might go as far as to say unforgettable, although I must confess I enjoyed the or something much more than wearing the dinner."

He opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, and she bit her lip and smiled at him. "Are you going to return the favour?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "It's only polite. But if it's alright with you, since we're both such atrocious cooks, how about next time we just skip the dinner part entirely?"

She nodded, thinking that that sounded like an excellent suggestion, and he offered her a small wave and a suggestive twitch of his eyebrows before he Disapparated.

She grinned and closed the door behind him, and then gave in to the urge to dance through her flat to her bedroom and threw herself down on her bed. She felt sure that she was far too excited to be able to sleep. She decided to pass the time pondering the idea of being deviously seduced by someone who continued to be a rather mischievous gentleman.

Before she drifted off to sleep, she came to the conclusion that she liked it, very much in deed, and that Sunday couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

**A/N: Many, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. And I believe I promised a top-notch reward for anyone who reviews this one, so:**

**I've got a whole bunch of Remuses, and a whole load of ice cream. Thoughtful Remus brings vanilla and a range of different toppings because he's not sure what you like, Sexy Remus favours something dark and chocolaty with cherries in it, Mischievous Remus is partial to tutty fruity, Shy Remus tentatively offers caramel and Flirty Remus is a mint-choc chip man. Pick your Remus and your ice cream. Spoons, of course, are optional…. ; ). **


	9. A Grimmauld Time

Much to Tonks' chagrin, she had successfully managed to avoid running into Remus all week. Every time she'd arrived at Grimmauld she'd been greeted by Molly telling her what a shame it was that she'd just missed him, and Sirius smirking knowingly as she fought to conceal her disappointment.

On Saturday she sat at the kitchen table slowly sorting through a pile of pilfered files on people Kingsley thought were possible Death Eater associates, and desperately willed time to speed up so that Sunday would come more quickly. So far time hadn't co-operated. It never did, but that didn't stop her trying.

She'd missed Remus, more than she thought she would have done, more than was probably wise for something so new and relatively untested.

She stretched, trying to throw off the lethargy inspired by the dry Ministry files, and gazed around the kitchen, wondering about making a cup of tea. Ginny looked up and Crookshanks let out an odd, growl-like purr of displeasure at her ceasing to toy with his ears. "Bored?" Ginny said.

"Hmm."

"I don't think I'd ever get bored if I could morph."

"Novelty wears off after a couple of years," Tonks said, but obligingly turned her hair Weasley red anyway. She peered at the ends for a moment, still not quite happy with the colour, and then sighed and flipped it back over her shoulder. She turned back to the pile of files, swearing that the pile marked 'unread' was getting higher every time she looked away and then back again.

The door opened and she looked up to see who it was. Remus. Having not expected to see him, her heart leapt in her chest. "Wotcher," she said, sounding a little high-pitched in surprise. He seemed a little surprised to see her too.

"Hello," he said, running a hand over his hair self-consciously and then straightening his grey jumper. He needn't have worried – she thought he looked positively nibbleable – but they idea that he was nervous about what he looked like made her stomach dance a tango. "Ginny, Tonks."

She wondered if she'd imagined that his voice softened as he said her name, but before she'd had a chance to come to a proper conclusion, he came up behind her and gave her shoulder a brief squeeze, shooting her a playful glance as she looked up at him that made her heart skip a couple of beats. She had to fight pretty hard to avoid leaping to her feet and throwing herself at him in what Ginny would no doubt have considered a rather disturbingly public display of affection.

Ginny looked up and smiled at Remus, and then retrieved a Butterbeer cork from under the table and held it out to Crookshanks, who sniffed at it inquisitively. "I just came down to make a cup of tea," Remus said. "Would anybody else like one?"

"Please," Tonks said, and as she met his eye he smiled, sending a nervous tremor right through her.

He pottered around the kitchen making tea, and she watched him, wishing they were alone so she could sneak up behind him and wrap her arms around his waist. Not that she was ever very good at sneaking up behind people, but it'd be nice to try. He handed her a mug, presumably Molly's, bearing the legend 'World's Best Cook' and as she met his eye he grinned, evidently very pleased with himself and his private joke. He sank into the chair next to her, shuffling some of her papers out of the way so he could set his mug on the table. "Anything interesting?" he asked.

"Not yet."

She sipped her tea, noticing that he'd made it exactly how she liked. In fact, she thought that he actually made it more the way she liked it than she did. "How've you been?" he asked, his voice light, casual and a little distant for the benefit of the Weasley on the floor, while his eyes were all warmth and genuine interest.

"Good," she said. The urge to lean over and whisper in his ear a desperate declaration of how much she'd missed him was almost overwhelming. And while her lips were there, she thought, in the general area, they might as well she if his neck was as nibbleable as it looked…. She swallowed. Not the time for those thoughts, let alone actions. She swallowed again. "You?" she said, positively croaking the word out.

"Well, thank you. Busy," he paused for a moment, leaning forward slightly. "I didn't know you were here," he said softly. Tonks noticed Ginny look up at them quizzically.

"Just thought I'd pop in and try and make myself useful," she said, as neutrally as she could.

"Right," he said, smiling playfully and raising his eyebrow at her. "Lucky we ran into each other, then," he said. "Molly said you'd been trying to catch up with me all week. I hope it wasn't anything important?"

Tonks glanced at Ginny on the floor, who now seemed completely oblivious and far more interested in tormenting Crookshanks with the Butterbeer cork. "It'll keep," she said.

They both leant back in their chairs, and moments passed with them doing nothing but stealing glances at each other, which seemed remarkably sexy, she thought.

"Professor Lupin?" Ginny said, rolling the cork across the floor for Crookshanks to pounce on. They both looked over at her, startled out of respective thoughts, or in her case, daydreams about leaning over and kissing his neck.

"It's Remus," he said, reaching for his mug. "Or if you can't bear that, Lupin. And if you can't bring yourself to use that, make something up. I've heard you call Fred and George some very inventive nicknames and I would be delighted to have one of my own."

Ginny grinned, and Tonks sniggered quietly to herself and returned to her files, pretending to work. "Can I ask you something?" Ginny said.

"Of course," he replied, taking a sip of his tea.

"It's kind of a personal question," she said, retrieving the cork and rolling it again.

"They're the very best kind," he said, and Ginny seemed to steal herself, pulling herself straighter as she sat cross-legged on the floor, Crookshanks rubbing his head against her knee.

"You know when you were our teacher, and you told us about hexes? You said you need to know which one someone's got you with so you know how to counter it."

"Yes," he replied.

"I was wondering," she said, "is that a bit like being in love?"

Tonks stopped pretending to work and looked up. Remus was grinning. She suspected that whatever he'd been expecting Ginny to ask, it wasn't that. "I suppose that would depend," he said, "on what kind of hex we're talking about."

"And who you're in love with," Tonks interjected.

"Right," Ginny said, frowning thoughtfully.

Remus caught Tonks' eye. "I'm not sure we've answered the question," he said, and Tonks laughed.

"I meant more that – " Ginny sighed. "Well, unless it's something that makes you look different, you're the only one who knows if you've been hexed, aren't you? So if you think you've been hexed, then you probably have been. No-one else can tell you that you have or haven't been, because you're the only one who can say for certain."

"Yes," Remus said, "I suppose that's right."

"So if I think I'm in love, then I probably am, even if _other people_ think I'm being silly?" she said. Remus was about to answer when Ginny continued. "Have you ever been in love?" she said.

Tonks chanced a glance at Remus, and his eyes flickered to hers briefly. "Yes," he replied eventually, smiling. "I have."

"Was it like being hexed?"

"I'll confess to feeling certain Jelly-legs Jinx-like moments," he said, and Ginny smiled.

"Tonks?" she said.

"Oh yes," she said. "And it is very much like being hexed."

The kitchen door opened with a creak, and Molly's head appeared between the door and the doorframe. Tonks half-heartedly wondered if she'd been eavesdropping. "Ginerva Weasley," she said, with more than a little exasperation. "I thought I told you an hour ago to stop playing with that wretched cat and get your things packed?"

Ginny sighed dramatically and scrambled to her feet, Crookshanks letting out his most displeased growl-like purr yet. "Alright, I'm going," she said, traipsing to the door. "Thanks," she said to Remus.

Molly's gaze followed Ginny and Crookshanks down the hall. "I do hope she wasn't interrupting anything," she said, offering them a smile that was obviously intended to elicit details.

"Not at all, Molly," Remus said. "She asked a most intriguing question."

"Well," Molly said, "I suppose you two have lots to talk about, so – "

"Do we?" Remus said.

"Well yes," Molly said hurriedly and a little bewildered. "About tomorrow."

Remus offered Molly a rather tight-lipped smile of realisation, and the door swung closed as Molly left them to it…. Which, now Tonks came to think about it, was odd, because it was almost lunchtime and the kitchen was normally a hive of activity.

Molly had been acting quite oddly all week, actually…. There seemed only one likely explanation. "Is she – is she trying to set us up?" Tonks said.

"Oh yes," Remus said, with obvious amusement. "She barely misses an opportunity to tell me that I'd better ask you out and quick, before some other suitor snaps you up."

"Other suitor?" Tonks said. "Who does she think I am?"

Remus inclined his head ever so slightly towards her, and regarded her with a rather cheeky smile. "I think she has you down as a beautiful young woman who could have any man she wanted," he said. His eyebrows twitched mischievously. "And probably quite a large number of women."

She swatted him playfully on the arm, blushing to the roots of her Weasley-inspired hair, stomach fluttering madly, and he smiled. "And I have to say on that point, we agree," he said, "although we do differ slightly on the approach I should take. Molly thinks it would be a good idea for me to declare my feelings in a couple of stanzas of poetry – which, incidentally, she did offer to help me write. I, on the other hand, think that would probably have you running for the hills."

"Poetry?"

"Yes," he said, adopting a mock far-away gaze. "The only problem being that so few things rhyme with Tonks, and nearly none of them set the necessary romantic tone. Nymphadora, of course, offers some more interesting possibilities – adore her, bore her, implore her – " His eyes swung back to hers and he offered her a rather suggestive smile that did nothing at all to quell the fluttering. " – explore her... But ultimately we decided that I was far too shy for poetry."

"Too shy my arse," Tonks said, laughing just to drown out the deafeningly loud pounding of her rapidly accelerating heartbeat.

"Indeed," Remus said, taking a sip of his tea. "Molly doesn't need to know that, though," he added with a raise of his eyebrows.

She considered him for a moment. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she said.

"I can't say her efforts haven't afforded me the odd chuckle," he said, smiling at the thought.

"Do you not think you should just put her out of her misery?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" he said. "Besides, although she doesn't know what, I think she's guessed something's going on."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because she cornered me on Tuesday to ask about my intentions towards you."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that my intentions were all perfectly honourable," he said with mock offence that he quickly dropped in favour of a playfully suggestive tone and a raised eyebrow. Fixing her with such an intensely flirtatious look that she was pretty sure all of her internal organs had stopped whatever they were doing to watch, he said: "Except for the one about pinning you to a wall and having my way with you."

Tonks' organs all let out a collective gasp and then shuddered, leaving her with no other course of action than to let her mouth fall open in surprise. She raised a hand to her lips to try and hold in a startled giggle. "You didn't," she said from behind her hand. No wonder Molly had been keen to eavesdrop….

"No," he said, his face dissolving into a mischievous grin. He reached up and gently eased her hand away from her face, lacing his fingers through hers and lifting them to his lips. "I was sorely tempted, though," he said, placing a kiss on her fingers.

"What stopped you?"

"I didn't have a camera to capture the look on her face," he said, resting both of their hands on his knee and grinning. He reached for his mug with his other hand, while unconsciously tracing patterns on her thumb with his. His touch was so light she wasn't even sure she could feel his thumb – just the warm tickle of her skin as it responded.

Remus took a sip of his tea and frowned at her thoughtfully over the rim of his mug. "You don't really think being in love is like being hexed, do you?" he said.

She shifted in her seat a little, turning more towards him, and fixed him with her best flirty smile, tilting her face down and looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Well," she said, "like a lot of things, I expect it depends entirely on who you're doing it with."

"Indeed," he said. "Have you ever..?"

"Been in love?" she said, and he nodded. She wondered why her heart had suddenly started beating even more quickly. "Yes."

Remus considered her answer for a moment before setting his mug back on the table. "So who was he?" he asked, just failing to pull off the lightness of tone that would have indicated he was just making conversation. He sounded a little jealous, and she smiled to herself at the thought. She liked that. A lot.

"That would be telling," she said.

"Yes it would," he said.

"Don't be nosy."

He shot her a look of mock-outrage, and then laughed. Between all the flirtatious glances and thumb stroking and talk of pinning her to walls, she wasn't sure she could resist the urge to throw herself at him for much longer. So she decided to abandon the pretence that she was trying to all together in favour of just going directly for what she wanted.

"You know," she said, inching closer and lowering her voice, "you did promise me that if we ran into each other, you'd do something to make me very pleased to see you."

"So I did," he said, turning towards her slightly and smiling.

"And we do appear to have run into each other."

"So we have."

"So what are you going to do?" she said, but even as the words left her lips he was leaning towards her. She smiled, gladly shifting closer to meet him half-way. "Seems you've got one idea," she said.

"You know me," he said, taking her jaw in his hand. "Always thinking."

He caught her lips with his. They were warm and sweet from the tea he'd been drinking, and having them move over hers produced a sensation not unlike being hit with an Instant Intoxication spell. His kisses were heady and delicious and just as likely to cause loss of footing and giggling, both of which would no doubt have been very much on the cards, had she not have been firmly seated, with much better things to do with her lips.

He kissed her slowly as if they were getting reacquainted with each other, and she relished the fact that it did feel as good as she remembered. She loved the feel of his skin under her fingers, and the way his smell – all fresh and clean like spring breezes – seemed to waft around her and settle. His lips on hers and his fingers in her hair drove her to near insanity and made her never, ever want to do anything other than this.

"You know," she said, between kisses, "we probably really should talk about tomorrow."

He smiled against her lips and pulled away slightly. "Alright," he said. "What do you suggest?"

"Meet here, herd them onto the bus, drive them to school, herd them off again."

"That's all sorted, then," he said, and kissed her again.

She thought that, had Mrs Black not announced the presence of a visitor with her usual screech of welcome, they probably would have kissed all afternoon. And she had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it would have been an exquisitely lovely way to pass the time.

Unfortunately, Moody seemed to have different, very much less exquisitely lovely ideas, and dragged Remus off to whatever deserted farm building he had in mind for their day, leaving Tonks attempting to sulk at the table, with a massive grin on her face.

Having decided that, since she didn't quite have Remus' poker face, she'd best avoid Molly, she bundled up the files and Apparated back to her flat, so she could stare blankly at the pages in front of her and daydream about Remus in peace.

When Tonks arrived in the Grimmauld Place kitchen early on Sunday morning, the place was already bristling with activity, even though Molly was the only occupant. Porridge was stirring itself on the hob and the kettle was whistling, and there was a faint whiff of singed toast in the air. "Wotcher," she said, and Molly turned from the stove and beamed at her.

"Morning, dear," she said. "Toast for you or porridge?"

"Toast, please," Tonks said, and Molly handed her a plate laden with slices.

Tonks sat at the table and nibbled on a piece. She wondered where Remus was – it was highly unusual for her to be up earlier than he was, but it _was_ early, and she knew he'd been out late with Mad-Eye.

Her thoughts inevitably travelled to wondering what they were going to do after they'd dropped Harry and the others off at Hogwarts. As far as she was concerned anything involving both of them and no pressing engagements for a couple of hours was a winning idea.

"All set?" Molly asked, distracting her from her thoughts.

"What?" she said, hoping it didn't look like she'd been lost in a daydream.

"For this morning," Molly said.

"Oh," Tonks said. "Yes."

"You talked to Remus about it?"

"Yes," Tonks said. "It's all arranged."

"Did you talk to him about anything else?" Molly asked, her eyes sparkling with intrigue and inquisitiveness. Tonks suppressed the urge to grin.

"Might have," she said.

Molly opened her mouth to say something else – presumably some kind of roundabout question about her thoughts on romantic poetry – but was cut off by the door opening and Remus strolling in. She glanced at him, and he smiled. "Morning, Molly," Remus said. "Tonks."

Definitely didn't imagine his voice softening, she thought. She gave in to a brief shiver. "Morning Remus," Molly said. "Can I tempt you to some porridge before you head out?"

"Thank you," he said. He cast Molly a surreptitious glance and then slid into the chair next to Tonks. He leaned forward a little and lowered his voice. "How are you?"

"Good," she said. "You?"

He smiled and then looked up abruptly. She followed suit and found Molly eying them both approvingly, before she placed a large bowl of porridge on the table in front of Remus. He smiled at Molly and then stirred his porridge. "How was your night?" she asked.

"Lacked a certain something," he said, his eyes glittering.

"Did Mad-Eye drive you mad again?"

"To a fairly large extent," Remus said. "In the end, since even the spiders were giving us a wide berth, I insisted that he come here for a bit to see Arthur for the sake of my own sanity."

"Oh."

She knew her face had given away that she was feeling a twinge of panic at the thought. "What?" he said, quietly, his eyes searching her face with evident concern.

"Nothing," she said. "Just – well – it's a bit dangerous, doing that kind of stuff on your own."

He shot a furtive glance in Molly's direction, and, seeing that she was occupied, squeezed Tonks' hand under the table. "I assure you," he said, "that I'm much tougher than I look."

"Well you'd want to be," she said, and he grinned.

The door opened and Sirius came in, his expression rather fixed and sullen. "Morning," Remus said, offering him a wide grin as he removed his hand from Tonks', and wrapped it around a mug of tea instead. "Someone put a cheering charm on your breakfast, Moony?" Sirius said. Remus ignored him.

Molly offered Sirius a range of different breakfast options, and he waved them all away, claiming not to be hungry. With a frustrated huff, Molly turned her attention to Remus. "Tonks tells me you two had a chat yesterday," she said.

"I bet they did," Sirius muttered. Molly scowled.

"As you said," Remus said, "we needed to make arrangements for today's journey."

"Any plans for afterwards?" Molly said. Remus' eye flashed in Tonks' direction for just the briefest of moments.

"Nothing specific," he said.

Tonks' insides erupted into such an enthusiastic chorus of flutters, squirms and clenches that she almost missed the next part of the conversation.

"You'd be more than welcome to a spot of lunch with Arthur and me before we head home."

"Thank you, Molly," Remus said, "but I'm sure Arthur would rather have you all to himself."

Molly blushed, and Tonks sighed with relief, thanking the heavens for Remus' knack for polite refusals. A double date with Arthur and Molly was hardly the kind of thing she had in mind. "Anyway, it'll be nice for you two to spend some time together," Molly said, and then turned back to the stove.

"Oh yes," Sirius muttered. "Because they absolutely _never _do that."

Remus shot Sirius a playful glare.

"Why are you in such a sulk?" Tonks asked. Sirius opened his mouth to answer, but Remus got in first.

"Sirius and Severus had a – er – run in yesterday."

"And very childish it was of you, too," Molly shot over her shoulder. "Arguing in front of Harry like that. You should have known better."

Sirius glowered. "Well if he hadn't – "

"Don't you try and pull a 'he started it' with me, Sirius Black," Molly said.

"I'm not," Sirius said petulantly. "But he did. Greasy-haired toss– "

"Harry's at a very impressionable age," Molly said. "You shouldn't talk about Professor Snape like that when he's here."

Sirius opened his mouth to protest. "Molly's right," Remus said. "You can't let your personal feelings for Severus interfere with what Harry needs to do. You can't pass on the grudge – "

"I'm not!" Sirius said. "Harry hates Snape entirely of his own accord."

Molly huffed. "He does!" Sirius said. "Ask him. Ask any of them. I'm not having that greasy-haired git – "

"Keep your voice down," Molly hissed. "They're all up. You don't want them to hear you."

"Don't I?" Sirius muttered. He met Remus' eye. "He's going to use this as an opportunity to get at Harry. You know he is. I have to – "

"Don't."

"Don't what? You don't even know what I was going to say!"

Remus eyed Sirius evenly, and even though Tonks had very little idea what was going on, she could feel the prickle of tension in the air. "Don't I?" he said quietly.

Sirius leant back in his chair, his jaw tense. "Moony – "

"You'll just make things worse. You know you will," Remus said. "Harry needs to learn Occlumency and Severus is the only one in a position to teach him. You can't allow Harry to go off thinking that taking lessons with Severus is some kind of disloyalty to you."

Tonks expected Sirius to protest, but he didn't. He just leant further back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, looking a touch dejected. "You know that's not what I intended."

Remus rolled his eyes and let out a rather resigned sigh. "Leave it to me," he said. "I'll try and talk to him."

"Do you think he'll listen?"

"He might," Remus said.

"Alright," Sirius said. "But I'm still not convinced – "

"I think you've made that perfectly clear," Remus said.

Sirius shot a furtive look at Molly, and then got to his feet. "Don't leave before I've had a chance to say goodbye," he said.

"Going upstairs?" Molly said, and Sirius nodded, shooting Remus a look Tonks couldn't quite make out. "I'll come with you," she said. "They really should be getting a move on."

When the door had closed behind them, Remus turned toward her. "Sorry," he said, running a hand through his hair.

"What for?"

"Just once," he said, "it'd be nice to just sit here and have breakfast with you. Talk about the weather, or something."

She smiled. It was a nice thing for him to wish for, she supposed. "What happened with Snape, anyway?"

"Well," Remus said, raising his eyebrows, "I only have Sirius' word to go on – and a rather drunken, late-night word at that, but it seems Severus accused him of cowardice."

"Cowardice?"

"For staying here while the rest of us are keeping busy with rather riskier pursuits."

"But he's only here because – "

"I know," Remus said, wearily. "I'm not happy about it."

"Git."

"Him or me?" he asked, smiling. She returned his smile in answer, and then decided that a change of subject might be warranted.

"Are you still free for the rest of the day?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "You?"

"All yours."

"Good," he said. "Because I have very exciting and intricate plans, and you being there is integral to them."

"Really?" she said. "I thought you said you had nothing specific in mind?"

Remus grinned sheepishly as if he'd been caught out. "Oh alright," he said, his voice light with amusement. "My plans are neither exciting nor intricate – in fact, to the point of being non-existent – but I wasn't lying when I said you were integral to them."

"So you've got non-existent plans to which I am integral?" she said.

"Yes."

"How does that work?"

"I'm still hammering out some of the finer details," he said. "But I thought it might involve something like this…."

He pulled her in for a kiss and she dissolved against him.

There was a clunk in the hallway that sounded distinctly like something heavy being dropped, and the sound of chattering teens erupted just beyond the door. They moved apart, and Tonks' eyed the door, unable to resist teasing Remus when he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. She leaned towards him and gazed up into his eyes cheekily. "Now, about this pinning me to a wall business – " she whispered.

"Oh, I was joking about that," he whispered back.

"Oh," she mouthed, her tone rather more disappointed than she expected. Remus' eyes darted towards the door, and then he leant forward, grinning, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

"It's completely impractical," he whispered, "man of my height. Besides, it's so hard to find a bare wall in this place, and those stuffed elf heads hardly set a romantic tone."

"Shame," she whispered. "Imagine the look on the portraits' faces."

"Indeed," he whispered. "No, if I was going to pin you to anything, I rather think the table would be a better – "

The door swung open, and Tonks looked up to find the doorway crammed with startled-looking teenagers.

However, none of them had fainted, so she suspected they were startled by their mere presence, rather than their conversation. Unexpectedly coming across a former professor offering to pin somebody to a kitchen table would have produced a slightly more violent and horrified reaction, she thought. Although her own reaction had been rather different, and not at all horrified.

Tonks tried to keep her face impassive, biting her lip hard to stifle a snigger. Remus recovered rather better, getting to his feet and smiling good-naturedly at Harry, Ron and Hermione, utterly unflustered, as if he regularly had whispered conversations with people about pinning them to tables over breakfast. "Morning," Remus said brightly. "Porridge?"

Everything went pretty much to plan on the Knight Bus – they herded them on, they drove, they herded them off again. Tonks saw Remus pull Harry to one side for a quiet word while she said goodbye to the others, and after a flurry of activity, they were left alone outside the gates, watching Harry and the rest head up towards the castle. They stood in the snow and the cold air nipped at their fingers.

For some reason she couldn't quite fathom, she was nervous, but it wasn't the nervousness of their initial encounters – it was more a tingle of anticipation. She looked up, and Remus was eying her warily, which brought back a very different kind of nervousness. She raised her eyebrows at him tentatively. "I don't suppose you could – " Remus gestured to her appearance with rather acute embarrassment. "It's just – well, you look a little bit too much like my Great Aunt Maude."

"Oh," she said, and laughed. She cast her eyes around to make sure no-one was watching, and then waved her wand to change her clothes back to jeans, a thick green jumper, long, black woollen coat, and her bright pink scarf, and scrunched up her nose until her features were her own again, and her hair long and thick to protect her ears from the wind. "Better?"

"Yes," he said, grinning. "Now, what do you fancy doing?"

"I could do with something to warm up," she said, rubbing her hands together. "Cup of tea or something."

"You want to go to Madam Puddifoot's?" he said, his eyebrows shooting up behind his fringe in surprise.

"Not desperately," she said, making a face of disgust. Remus looked distinctly relieved. "Not a fan?"

"Not especially," he said, shiftily. She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation. "Bad experience," he offered.

"With a girl, I suppose," she said, rolling her eyes at him.

"Not necessarily," he said. She stared at him disbelievingly. He thrust his hands into his pockets, and relented, dropping his chin and peering at her through his fringe. "Oh alright, yes," he said, scuffing at the snow with the toe of his shoe.

She smiled to herself, not really knowing why she was finding him so endearing. "So you used to take girls there?" she said. "When you were at Hogwarts?"

"I might have done," he said, with a rather evasive smile. "On occasion. Although to be honest," he said, "I always preferred The Three Broomsticks for outings of a romantic nature."

"Why's that? You prefer the décor?"

"No," he said, "I figured out pretty early on that girls were far more likely to kiss me if they were a bit drunk."

He glanced at her, his eyes crinkling with amusement, and she elbowed him in the ribs. "Shall we walk while you snigger at me?" he said, and she nodded. He caught her hand and wrapped his around it, and they turned away from the castle and started heading down the treacherous slope towards the village. "What about you?" he said. "I suppose you frequently made the boys drool all over the chintz."

"Nah," she said. "I'm not exactly the kind of girl blokes take to places like that."

"You're not?"

"No," she said. "Boys at school didn't really want to take me there. Or anywhere there might be, you know, people to see me embarrass myself or things to knock over."

"Did you ever go to Hogsmeade with a boy?"

"No," she said. "I think I'm more the kind of girl blokes grope behind a broom shed than the kind they actually go out with."

Remus stopped, jolting her to a halt, and eyed her with utmost surprise. "What on earth makes you think that?"

"Look at me, Remus," she said, gesturing to her clothes and her red hair. He squeezed her hand.

"I am looking at you," he said softly. He lowered his face a little and smiled tentatively at her as she met his eye. "What am I supposed to be seeing?"

"Just – well I'm not, you know, _that_ kind of girl. I'm not sophisticated and proper and the kind you can trust around tea cups or crockery. It doesn't bother me," she said with more conviction than she felt. "It's just the way it is."

"If it doesn't bother you," he said, "why do you look like someone just pinched all your Christmas presents and told you there's no Santa?"

She chuckled lightly. "There's no Santa?" she said.

"Of course there is," he said. He hesitated for just a moment, and then wrapped his arms around her and gave her a reassuring squeeze that she knew had absolutely nothing to do with convincing her of Santa's existence. She slid her hands around his waist inside his coat, enjoying the warmth of his body on her cold hands and the feel of the soft material of his scarf against her cheek.

They stood like that for a while – long enough for her to start feeling silly about being even remotely upset about things that had – or hadn't – happened years ago. Remus leant back a little and rested his lips on her temple. "I would be delighted to take you to Madam Puddifoot's, buy a pot of tea and leave it to go cold while we snog over the sugar bowl," he said, "if that's what you'd like."

She reluctantly abandoned her place on his chest and smiled up at him. "Nah," she said. "It just would've been nice to do that kind of thing when I was younger. Do the kind of thing everyone else did for once."

He didn't look entirely convinced. "How about," he said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled slightly, "since we don't have any other plans, I take you on a proper Hogsmeade date?"

"What?"

"If you never went on one," he said, "I think I should."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, kissing her lightly on the forehead, "all the boys you went to school with were clearly idiots."

She grinned. "Alright," she said, thinking that it might be fun. He pulled away and stepped back. "What would we have done up until now?" she asked eagerly.

"Well," he said. "I'd have arranged to meet you somewhere out of sight of my friends, to avoid all the unseemly whooping and kissing noises they would have made – somewhere on the grounds probably."

"Would you have kissed me hello?"

"No," he said, raising an eyebrow at her as if the question had amused him. "I would _never_ do anything that improper. I would have offered you my arm – thus," he said, nudging her with his elbow. She hooked her arm through his. " – and then gone bright red."

"Then what?"

"Embarrassed teenage small talk all the way to the village."

She laughed and he glanced down at her and tightened his grip on her arm slightly as they started to walk through the snow down to Hogsmeade. She idly wondered what it would have been like if they'd been at school together, whether they would have been interested in each other or not, but she supposed it didn't really matter. They were interested now, and that alone was enough to make her feel like a jittery sixteen year old.

They went to the Post Office first, and she fed treats to the long distance owls while he scribbled a post card to his mother because neither of them could think of anyone else to write to, and she wanted to watch one take off. Although he let her attach it to the owl's leg, he wouldn't let her read what he'd written, however much she pouted and however much she tried to get the bird to peck him and prove that it thought she was right. They watched it take off into the grey sky, and then headed through the village. She clung to him on the pretence that the cobbles were icy and she could easily lose her footing, even though the cobbles didn't feel particularly treacherous beneath her feet, but if he knew she was only making excuses, he didn't protest.

Next, Remus insisted on a trip around Zonko's, where the elderly wizard behind the counter greeted him like a long-lost relative and gave her a discount on a screaming yo-yo when she grumbled about her mother not letting her have one when she was little. With that safely pocketed, they walked all the way to Dervish and Banges, where Remus was far too fascinated with the inner workings of everything on display and she muttered something about 'once a professor, always a professor', which made him blush slightly in the most adorable way. In Scrivenshaft's he tickled her nose with a peacock feather quill, and in Honeydukes they bought an assortment of different exotic sweets and ate them on a walk through the side streets, gazing into the shop windows and pointing things out to each other just as an excuse to lean closer as they chatted.

They went everywhere – in fact, they did everything that all the girls at school who got to go to Hogsmeade with boys had done. But she got to do it with Remus, who was infinitely cooler and sweeter than any of the boys she'd been to school with.

They decided to give Madam Puddifoot's a miss, opting to stop for a drink in the Three Broomsticks instead, sitting in the window and watching as fresh snow started to fall outside and people hurried about their business, pulling their scarves tighter around their necks and huddling into their cloaks. "Do you like snow?" he said. She laughed. It seemed a very odd question.

"What?"

He seemed to realise just how strange it sounded, and let out a soft chuckle. "I mean – you said you like winter. I just wondered if that included snow."

"Yes," she said, trying to keep her face straight. "I like snow. You?"

"Yes," he said, his lips twitching with amusement. "More than a man of my age probably should."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well," he said, "I think you reach a certain point in life and it's a bit odd to get excited by the weather."

"Some people might argue that it's a bit odd to be excited by the weather at any age," she said.

"Are any of those people sitting at this table?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"No," she said quickly.

"Good," he said, smiling. He took a sip of his Butterbeer and then looked at her thoughtfully. "I just mean – I suppose – that snow always…. I don't know." He frowned a little, and for a moment she worried that he wasn't going to go on. "I always feel like snow is special, because it won't be there for long. I always feel like I should make the most of it because it's so rare. But I never feel that way about sunshine – and definitely not about rain. I'm quite partial to a thunderstorm, though."

She wasn't quite sure why, but it seemed like an oddly personal thing to share. She rested her elbow on the table and leaned on her hand, peering at him and trying not to laugh. "You're very strange," she said. His eyebrows contorted in some kind of dance of amusement.

"I know," he said.

They finished their drinks and he lead her outside, pausing just outside the pub. The snow was settling in his hair and he looked just adorable. "Thank you for this," she said. "It's been really nice."

"Oh we're not done quite yet," he said.

"No?"

"No," he said, reaching for the lapels on her coat and pulling her closer. "I believe there is still one traditional thing left, and in the interests of providing a complete experience, I think we shouldn't neglect it."

He smiled down at her briefly, and then bent his head to hers. He kissed her slowly, and she thought that if she'd been fifteen her heart wouldn't have beat any quicker.

"Now," he said, "I believe it's traditional for you to scurry away to your friends, and then you all point at me and giggle and make me feel nervous."

She laughed and gave him a playful shove. "Do you want to come to mine for a bit?" she said, and he gave her a smile of reluctant refusal.

"I should get back," Remus said, looking away down the lane. "Who knows what Sirius will have got up to left to his own devices?"

"Oh," she said. "Ok."

"You know I'd much rather – "

"I know."

They were quiet for a minute, and then Remus nudged her with his elbow. "Come with me," he said, smiling a little nervously. "Cheer me up."

"You don't seem particularly depressed," she said.

"Oh I'm not now," Remus said. "But after a couple of hours listening to his whinging, I will be."

"You really think he'll be that bad?"

"This run in with Snape really got to him," Remus said. "No-one really knows how to get to Sirius like Severus. Except me, perhaps," he added as an afterthought, furrowing his brow. "I think tonight he might just need some company," he said.

"Are you sure he wouldn't just prefer it to be the two of you?"

"He adores you," Remus said, "and he adores teasing me about you. I can't think of anything more likely to cheer him up."

She smiled her agreement.

When they both arrived back at Grimmauld, shaking the snow out of their hair and stamping the feeling back into their feet, Sirius was nowhere to be found. "Should one of us go and find him?" she whispered, as Remus helped her off with her coat and hung it up in the hall.

"He's probably with Buckbeak," Remus whispered back. He put both of his hands on her shoulders and steered her down the corridor and into the kitchen. They closed the door behind them.

"Are you hungry?" he said, and she nodded. "Well," he said, "I do believe I promised to make you dinner."

"What you actually promised was to have me over so we could skip dinner and get on with the or something," she said.

"Yes," he said, grinning, "but I wouldn't want you to think I was only after one thing. Or have you faint just when things were getting interesting."

She giggled, and Remus busied himself at the stove. She settled in a chair and experimentally toyed with her screaming yo-yo. After twenty minutes she decided that her mother was probably right not to let her have one.

"What are we having?" she asked, setting the yo-yo on the table.

"Well, Molly, who for some reason thinks that Sirius and I are a couple of incompetent bachelors – "

"Now where'd she get an idea like that?" Tonks said.

"No idea," Remus said, grinning at her over his shoulder. "Although I suspect the time she caught us eating her cake mix for breakfast might have had something to do with it."

"Cake mix?"

"It was chocolate," he offered, in mitigation. "Anyway, she left us a couple of Shepard's pies, a lasagne that would feed a small army and a vat of some kind of orange-coloured stew, all of which I have eschewed in favour of these."

He turned to face her, placing three plates bearing identical giant sandwiches on the table in front of her. "And they are?"

"Fish finger, pea and tomato sauce sandwiches," Remus said. "It's much less disgusting than it sounds," he added, slicing the sandwiches into rather dainty triangles. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"That's hardly a glowing endorsement, Remus."

"I know," he said. "But it's a surprisingly pleasing combination."

"I'm not convinced about the tomato sauce part," she said, although in truth she wasn't really convinced about any of the parts. Apart from maybe the bread.

"Well, you see, the tomato sauce is there for practicality rather than taste. You need it to keep the peas in place," he said. "Or they roll everywhere and it's just ridiculous."

"Oh that's what makes it ridiculous, is it?" she said. "Misplaced peas."

He raised an eyebrow at her and smiled, indicating that she should pick a plate. She did as she was told, pulling one of the plates towards her and eyeing the contents of her sandwich warily. She idly wondered how many more weird Marauder fillings he had up his sleeve.

Remus threw a handful of Floo powder into the fire and shouted "Sirius! Dinner's ready," into the flames, before sitting next to her at the table.

"What did he do to deserve you?" she said.

"Something very, very bad," Remus said, his eyes twinkling.

She was halfway through her sandwich, which had turned out to be surprisingly tasty, when Sirius tramped morosely into the kitchen. He stood at the end of the table, and dejectedly pulled a plate towards him. "I'll take this upstairs," he said, "leave you two alone."

"Don't be silly," Remus said. He got to his feet and pulled a chair out for Sirius. Sirius eyed him stroppily.

"I don't want to sit here and watch you two drool all over each other."

"I think we can probably keep our hands off each other long enough for dinner," Remus said, shoving Sirius down into the chair before sinking back into his own.

Sirius' expression brightened a little as he met Remus' eye over the top of his sandwich. "_You _better keep your hands to yourself full stop," he said.

Remus smirked.

Sirius took a huge bite out of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "What on earth made you think to make these?" he said. "I thought Molly left us proper food."

"She did, but it'll keep. Besides, these are your favourite," Remus said. "Aren't they?"

"Hmm," Sirius said. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. "Don't think I can't see through this."

"See through what?"

"This shoddy attempt to get me on side so I'll stop giving you a hard time about Tonks."

"Well," Remus said, "it _was_ a bit thinly veiled. Has it worked?"

"No," Sirius said, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it, just as easily as she could tell that Remus' choice of dinner had absolutely nothing to do with trying to curry favour with her cousin so he'd give him an easier time.

She wondered what it felt like to have a friend like that – a friend who'd give up an evening snogging on a sofa to listen to you whinge, someone to cook you your favourite dinner to cheer you up, even though you were a misery who didn't deserve it.

All of a sudden, Remus' promise that she'd be able to keep her hands to herself seemed in danger of going spectacularly un-kept. She wasn't sure she'd ever fancied anybody more. She wondered about that whole pinning to the table business, and toyed, momentarily, with the idea of hauling Remus out of his seat and giving it a try. The look on Sirius' face might make it worth the while in itself….

"Who's for a drink?" Sirius said, interrupting her thoughts and sounding remarkably more cheerful than he had done for days. Remus nodded, smiling slightly to himself.

Sirius pulled himself to his feet and went to the pantry, appearing moments later with a large, green bottle. He settled back at the table and took out his wand, uncorking it deftly and then summoning three glasses from the dresser. He filled the first one to the brim and slurped at it while it was still on the table. Thankfully he didn't offer that glass to either of them, pouring out two more glasses and handing them over instead.

"Red, Sirius?" Remus said.

"What?"

"Nothing," Remus said, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. "Just – you're supposed to have white with fish fingers," he said. "Everyone knows that."

Tonks laughed, nearly choking on a stray, tomato ketchup-covered pea. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she said, coughing a little. "Misplaced pea."

"See?" he said. "Imagine how dangerous they'd be if I hadn't done anything to rein them in."

They finished dinner and that bottle of wine, chatting about nothing in particular, and Sirius insisted on opening another bottle, polishing off most of it on his own in fairly record time. Then he started incoherently ranting about Snape.

Remus had been getting slowly lower and lower in his chair, as if actually weighed down by Sirius' anger. She wondered if eventually he might just slip off the chair completely. Not that she suspected Sirius would notice – neither of them had been allowed to get a word in edgeways for ages.

"Bloody greasy-haired – " Apparently, Sirius couldn't think of the right word, trailing off into an exasperated sigh. "And in my own house! Bleedin' nerve. Greasy-haired – little – petty – snidey – tossing wankpot."

He poured himself some more wine, while Remus leant over and whispered "I think that last one was supposed to be 'wanking tosspot'." Tonks mouthed an 'oh', and they exchanged a furtive smile at her cousin's expense. Sirius let out another string of largely incoherent expletives, and then excused himself to go to the bathroom, swaying wildly as he wove his way to the door.

"Do you think he's going to be alright?" she said.

"If he falls over I'm sure we'll hear him," Remus said, eyeing the ceiling with a frown. She laughed.

"No I meant – " she said.

"Oh," he said, eyes widening in realisation. "You meant more generally?"

She nodded and he smiled rather wistfully. "He hates it here – to be honest I was amazed he even suggested coming back at all, the way he used to talk about this place. And the situation he's in…."

"I certainly wouldn't like it."

"No," Remus said. "But he'd do anything for Harry. And he's tough."

"Is he tough enough?"

"He's survived something very few people would have done," Remus said. "For now, though, I think, perhaps, he just needs to get good and drunk and have a good rant and get this Snape thing out of his system."

"Well he seems to be well on the way."

"Indeed," Remus said. "Sorry."

"What for?"

"For you having a rubbish evening," he said. "I promise I will take you out again – somewhere where you get to eat something other than sandwiches and the conversation is a little less, shall we say, robust."

"What are you talking about?" she said. "I'm having a whale of a time. I've learned at least eight new swearwords, a fab new recipe, I've had the finest wine known to nutty old pure-blood obsessed women…. You're going to have to go some way to beat this."

He looked at her with amused gratitude. "Do you ever see a cloud, or just the silver lining?" he said.

"Nope," she said, grinning. "I'm a silver-lining girl through and through."

There was a resounding thud somewhere above, and a moment's blissful silence before Mrs Black started screeching. Remus sighed. "You want him or his dear mother?" he said..

"I'll take her," she said, and they got up together.

Remus headed upstairs to find the source of the thud, barely pausing as Mrs Black shrieked at him for being a filthy half-breed not fit to lick her carpets clean let alone tread them. "Oh be quiet, you old bat," Tonks said, fighting to get the curtain closed.

When she'd eventually managed to shut the painting up, she went upstairs to find Remus. She reached Sirius' bedroom, and heard faint noises of movement inside. She slowly pushed the door open. Remus raised his finger to his lips to motion for quiet and pointed to Sirius, who appeared to be sleeping soundly, sprawled on his bed.

Remus threw a blanket over him and frowned at him in concern for a moment, before looking up at her and gesturing for her to lead the way out of the room.

They stepped out into the hallway, and Remus turned the lights off and pulled the door to. He offered her a resigned sigh before sliding down the closed door opposite and onto the carpet, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He ran his hands through his hair, and then clasped them in his lap. She decided to join him.

"Remind me again why you're still friends with him?" she said, resting her elbows on her knees.

"No-one else would have him," Remus said, with a weary smile.

She watched him watching the doorway for a while, wondering what he expected to happen, or if he just wanted to be there in case he was needed.

"I missed you this week," he said softly, resting his head against the door as he turned to look at her. She grinned at him.

"Good."

"I think you'll find the correct response is 'I missed you too, Remus'," he said, crossing his arms and shooting her a playful offended look from underneath his fringe.

"Are you sulking?"

"Evidently not hard enough if you have to ask."

He looked away, and she couldn't quite tell if he was still playing or not, although she suspected that he was. She edged towards him slowly, and the closer she got, the further away he looked, although she could tell by the frantic activity in his cheek that his sullen expression was on the very edge of slipping. She leant in, steadying herself on his arm and kissed his cheek, before slowly working her way to his ear and nibbling it slowly. He squirmed a little but didn't seem overly keen for her to stop and so she continued down the side of his neck, kissing him lightly all the way down to the collar of his shirt while she traced the same trail on the other side with her fingers, and then back up again because she couldn't resist it.

"You know," she said softly, close to his ear, his hair tickling his nose, "when it comes to things like this, I think I'm better with actions than words."

"Well that," he said, turning his face to kiss her, "is fine with me."

He kissed her ardently, swiftly accelerating her pulse and making her feel as if all the breath had been knocked out of her. The intensity of his kisses took her a little by surprise, but she soon adjusted to it, shifting closer, and then straddling his lap. He let out a low rumble of approval as she settled against him, his lips curving into a smile beneath hers as his hands roamed up and down her back. She raked her fingers through his hair and he bent his knees a little behind her, tilting her further towards him. She felt instantly warmer, and she wasn't sure it was entirely to do with shared body heat.

He dropped his hands to grasp her hips and she ran her fingers up and down his neck, toying with the hair at his nape and enjoying how much fierier his kisses became when she did something he liked. His hands skirted up to her waist and then back again, alternately pulling her closer and letting her go, allowing her to lean back a little so that he could do delicious things to her neck with his teeth and tongue. Resistance to whimpering was futile, even though Sirius was only a few paces away – Remus seemed to have already figured out exactly what kind of kisses she liked and he was only too happy to oblige.

Slowly, Sirius' snoring and the grim hallway and the dusty carpet and the whole horrid house fell away, followed by everything else. The world slowly came unravelled, and then did itself up again with them at the centre of everything, as if they were the only things that actually existed. There was nothing but the feel of his lips beneath hers and his hair sliding through her fingers and the warmth of his body and her racing heartbeat.

"You _have_ missed me," he murmured against her lips, his smirk evident in his voice. She mumbled a reply that was, even by her standards, spectacularly incoherent. She couldn't quite decide if he was driving her insane because it was far too much, or not quite enough.

"Mooooony," came a wail from the bedroom opposite.

"Ignore him," Remus said, barely pulling away far enough to let the words out. "He'll go away."

"Mmm."

His hands found their way to her face and held her in an insistent kiss, as if they could both just block him out if they concentrated enough on what they were doing.

Sirius, however, seemed to have other ideas.

"Mooooooony," he wailed. "I don't feel very well."

"Ignore him."

"Make me."

She felt his eyebrows rise in surprise and then he dragged his lips away from hers, trailing kisses down her throat in a way that probably would have made her ignore the end of the world.

"Can you get me a bucket?"

Remus stopped. She felt a warm breath of frustration on her skin, and then he pulled away and dropped his head against the door. He closed his eyes and sighed, and Tonks desperately fought the urge to laugh. "I hate him," he said. "I actually, physically, hate him."

She bit her lip. "No you don't."

"No, I don't," Remus sighed. He rolled his eyes with weary and rather frustrated resignation, and gestured for her to move. "But I should."

She scrambled off his lap and he ran his hands over his face. He let out a long sigh and struggled to his feet before offering her a hand up. She was quite surprised her legs supported her at all. He pulled her close, rubbing her arms gently and gazing at her as he rested his forehead on hers. "Would this be one of those Jelly-legs Jinx-like moments you were telling Ginny about?" she said, clutching at his waist with her hands in an attempt to stay upright.

"Well it was."

"Was?"

"Yes," he said. "Unfortunately I seem to find the low, drunken moaning of a man who's clearly old enough to know better quite an effective counter jinx."

She laughed, and even though he joined in he didn't really look like he thought it was amusing. The thought that he was miffed about being interrupted made her want to laugh even more, even as her stomach twisted. "I should go and – er – look after him, I suppose," he said.

"Do you want me to stay up with you?"

"You should go to bed," he said, softly. "I appreciate the offer, but you've got work tomorrow, and I hardly think showing up covered in red wine vomit is going to do you any favours career-wise."

Sirius let out a low, plaintive, moan that may well have been the word 'Moony'.

"Look on the bright side," she said, "at least he knows it's you this time."

"Well there is that," Remus said, smiling. "You really can find a silver-lining in everything."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her softly, once, before pulling away. "I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow," he said, and she nodded. "Maybe afterwards we can discuss how we're going to get our own back on him."

She let out a sigh of amusement, and offered Remus a faint wave as he disappeared into Sirius' room. Just beyond the door, she heard Remus say: "You know, Sirius, this is a hell of a way to make sure I keep my filthy, lecherous werewolf paws to myself."

Tonks giggled into the back of her hand, and then opened the door to her room. She slipped inside and as she sank into bed, wondered if Sirius hadn't interrupted them, how much longer Remus would have been able to carry on being a gentleman. She grinned to herself as she thought that she wasn't even sure she particularly wanted him to.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time, and treats abound for anyone kind enough to do so this time. As usual, you get your pick of the Remuses, and this time they come bearing seasonal, chocolaty, gifts. Thoughtful Remus brings you a small chocolate bunny, Romantic Remus is all about caramel-centred hearts, Flirty Remus brings Creme Eggs and eats them suggestively, and Sexy Remus, of course, has chocolate spread and a big grin. For this week only, I'm also offering Frustrated Remus, who brings chocolate spread and then gets interrupted before he has a chance to take the lid off. Happy Easter**! 


	10. February Stars

Since the Death Eater breakout, Tonks and Remus had barely seen each other. She'd been frantic at work, being sent from one end of the country to the other, chasing sightings which turned out to be nothing but shadows and over-active imaginations. Most days she was so busy she barely knew who she was let alone where – just this week she'd been to Leeds and then to the Lake District and then to Cornwall. Remus had been busy too, although, unlike the Ministry who were searching fruitlessly for the Death Eaters themselves – no doubt expecting them all to conveniently check into a bed and breakfast somewhere using their real names and providing their pursuers with a big neon arrow marked 'We Are Here' right over their whereabouts – the Order were more concerned with keeping tabs on people who might be likely to help out their old friends, or who might be made to pay for some old grudge. She thought it was a far better strategy, even if it did keep Remus away from her.

Aside from the odd stolen kiss before or after meetings, or on the very odd occasions when they were both at Grimmauld and not asleep, they'd hardly exchanged so much as a glance. She was so miserable about it that Sirius had stopped teasing her, although she suspected he was just biding his time.

When Valentine's Day arrived, she had no real expectation that it would be anything other than gloomy and disappointing, and so when she got up to find an envelope that had clearly been shoved under her door looking at her from the carpet, she hesitated a moment before picking it up because she was so surprised to see anything at all. She ran her finger over her name, written in impeccably neat script on the front. She smiled at it, knowing Remus' handwriting immediately, and then turned it over to find more writing:

_Say the magic words, Nymphadora. _

Tonks stared at the envelope, and then turned it over again. There was nothing else written on it. She tried to slide a finger under the flap, but it didn't seem to want to open by normal means. Magic words, she thought….

"Abracadabra?" she offered feebly. Nothing happened. She tried a plaintive "Please?". Nothing.

She thought for a moment, and then bit her lip and smiled at the idea that formed. "Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus?" she offered. When the envelope glowed yellow and the flap twitched open, she grinned. Magic words indeed.

She opened the envelope and there was a loud snapping noise. She jumped in surprise, pulse racing, and with a whoosh a bunch of flowers burst from inside, swinging wildly in mid-air before coming to rest just in front of her. They were accompanied by some miniature golden fireworks that fizzed around her and then formed into the words 'Happy Valentine's Day' above the flowers as they hovered, quivering slightly and waiting for her to take them. She obliged, grinning as she brought them to her nose and inhaled their scent. They were beautiful – hyacinths, three pink and two blue stems, neatly tied with a length of white ribbon. She gazed at the hundreds of tightly packed miniature blooms on each apple green stem, loving every single one. Then she noticed something written on the inside flap of the envelope.

_P.S. If you're currently lying on the floor, clutching your chest and shouting for medical assistance, I apologise. I promise to bring you much less surprising flowers in hospital. See you tonight xx._

She grinned, and, feeling considerably more chipper about the whole thing, she made her hair long and wavy in some messy appropriation of a romantic do, and then turned it a dark copper colour. Tonight, she thought. Well, there _was_ that, and whilst a stake-out wasn't exactly romantic, they'd both taken the mission since at least then they'd be together on Valentine's Day instead of hundreds of miles apart.

And so, at half past eleven that evening, Tonks found herself huddled under an Invisibility Cloak with Remus, in a field somewhere in Yorkshire in a light drizzle, watching a deserted farmhouse owned by Rookwood. She sighed. As far as she was concerned the reason she hated the Death Eaters most at the moment was the crimp they were putting on her love-life.

"Well," she said. "Happy – "

Remus cut her off by placing his finger on her lips. "What?" she mouthed, eyes wide with alarm. "Did you hear something?"

"No," he said, smiling. "You can't wish me happy Valentine's Day yet because it's not over."

"What?"

"Well," he said. He glanced almost shyly at the grass beneath his feet and then leant towards her a little and raised his eyes slowly to hers. "If you're not too tired," he said, "I might have a little surprise for you as soon as Mad-Eye and Kingsley turn up."

"Might you?" she said, beaming at him.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

He ran a hand down her arm, igniting it in a barrage of tingling sensations, and finding her hand, gave it a slight squeeze. "Telling you would rather spoil the surprise element, wouldn't it?"

"Give me a hint, then."

He pressed his lips together for a moment as he thought, and she wondered whether Mad-Eye would consider her barrelling Remus onto the ground and snogging his brain out to be too far a waiver from constant vigilance. "We're treading old ground, but exploring new territory," he said slowly, raising an eyebrow at her and offering her a sly half-grin that made her all too tempted to think that what Mad-Eye didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

She pursed her lips and thought about his clue instead. She knew there were probably a dozen things Remus could mean – probably more – but owing either to their close proximity under the Invisibility Cloak or the fact that they really hadn't seen nearly enough of each other recently, her thoughts automatically wandered to a rather enticingly naughty place.

Her mind boggled.

It was still boggling when Moody and Kingsley turned up to relieve them, but she was so keen to find out what it was that Remus had planned she forgot how tired she was and how miserable she'd been and took Remus' hand and dragged him away while he was still in mid-conversation with Mad-Eye.

"You're keen," he said.

"I am," she said, grinning.

He released her hand and caught her around the waist, and when she turned to face him, he looked every inch as keen as she was. "This'll do," he said. "Hold on."

She gladly obliged, and he Apparated them both.

She looked around, finding herself in a wood, with thick tree trunks all around her and the delicious smell of cold air and pine needles spiralling up from beneath her feet. "Where on earth are we?" she whispered into the crisp darkness.

"You'll see."

Remus took her hand and lead her forwards up a bracken-covered slope, and when they reached their destination, she could barely believe her eyes.

Before her was a grassy clearing, and, illuminated by flickering golden lights in jam jars that were either nestled in the grass or hanging from low tree branches, was a red and blue checked blanket and a large wicker picnic hamper.

She turned to Remus, raising her eyebrows at him and grinning. "A picnic?" she said, incredulously.

"Yes."

"In February?" she said.

"Yes."

"At midnight?"

"Yes," he said, returning her grin with interest. "I like a challenge."

"A challenge?"

"Well," he said, "any idiot can do it on a warm afternoon in August."

She laughed, still not sure she'd quite taken it all in. "I can't believe you did all this," she said, a little taken aback at how dreamy her voice sounded. He smiled, and it was the most adorable, half-self conscious, half-teasing smile she'd ever seen. She was surprised that she didn't turn into a puddle at his feet and drain away between the leaves.

She stepped closer to Remus, mindful of her footing on the uneven, slightly frosty ground, and wrapped her arms around his neck, thinking how daft her pink and black striped gloves looked against his plain grey scarf, but keen to make the most of her non-puddle-like state, because she was certain it was bound not to last. He rested his hands on her hips, easing her closer as bent down to kiss her, and as his lips fastened on hers she sighed, feeling like something inside her had just lit up. Somehow the thought that they were both here, without anything to rush off to, without anyone to interrupt them, felt more unreal than what he had done for her, but no less thrilling.

He kissed her softly at first, returning her sigh of relief that after all the frantic activity of the last few weeks, they had the space and the time to just be, together. And then his kiss became deeper and more eager as he wrapped his arms around her and explored her mouth. She responded to his eager kisses just as eagerly, wanting to show him how much she'd missed him, and when he held her even more tightly, she knew she wasn't the only one who'd been pining.

As she pulled away and he smiled down at her, she wondered if this would be an appropriate time to tell him that she'd been so desperate just to see him, to spend time with him, that she would have settled for a stroll through some of the grimy streets around Grimmauld Place and a bag of crisps. "So you like it, then?" he said, giving her a slight squeeze that she could only just feel through all the layers she was wearing.

"Of course I do."

"I was worried you wouldn't," he said, tilting his chin down a little as he looked at her.

"Why on earth wouldn't I – "

"Well, you did say you weren't one for traditional romantic gestures," he said. "I thought perhaps starlight and flowers qualified."

"I _loved_ the flowers," she said, fiddling with the loose knot in his scarf. "And I'm not sure there's anything traditional about a midnight picnic in February, Remus," she said, running her hands over the front of his coat. "It's fabulous."

"Good."

He pulled her closer and kissed her soundly.

"Just one thing, though," she said, pulling away gently and letting her words tickle his lips. "What if we get cold?"

"Well then," he said, "we'll just have to find a way to warm each other up."

"Really?" she said, raising her eyebrows at him in an entirely false gesture of surprise at his suggestion. "I suppose you have lots of ideas about how we might do that?"

"Just the one, actually," he said.

"And what's that?"

"Quite obviously," he said, raising an eyebrow at her, "I thought we'd conjure each other amusing hats." He raised a hand to her cheek and his gloves tickled her skin as he ran his fingers down it, and then lifted her chin. He smiled rather wickedly and lowered his voice to little more than a husky whisper. "Of course if you had something else in mind…."

His lips were on hers once more, and he left her feeling positively toasty.

Remus took her hand and lead her over to the blanket, indicating that she should sit down. She gladly obliged, and it was warm beneath her. She made a mental note to ask him to show her his warming charm at some point, since hers were always a bit of a cold squib. He sat down next to her, still smiling. "How on earth did you do all this?" she said.

"I might have had help."

"Who from?"

"Well," he said, "if you could see through the trees, you'd see we're on the hill behind The Poplars."

"John helped you?"

"Yes," Remus said. "He was kind enough to lend me his hamper and the blanket when I told him what I had planned and for who."

"Does he even remember me?"

"Contrary to popular belief," Remus said, tilting his head towards her and fixing her with an amused miffed expression, "I do not show up on his doorstep with girls on a regular basis." She bit her lip and shot him a look of vague apology, and he smiled back. "He was very taken with you, actually. In fact, he said that if he was ten years younger he'd be giving me a run for my money."

Tonks giggled. "Should I be worried?" Remus said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Well he's a very attractive man," she said, thinking how incongruous his warm, shovel-like hands were with the rather dainty picnic hamper he'd provided. "Unluckily for him, though," she said, "I'm quite taken with someone else."

"Good," he said, smiling. Then a brief look of panic flashed across his face. "I mean it is – you did mean me, didn't you?"

"Yes," she said laughing, and nudging him admonishingly with her shoulder, "of course I did."

"Ok," he said, looking away, embarrassed. "I just thought I'd check – you know – before being smug about it."

She laughed, leaning back on her hands and looking up at the sky. It was a perfectly clear night, and a beautiful lush, velvety sky hung above them, the stars twinkling down as if they were little dots of magic he'd created just for her.

She couldn't quite believe he'd done something so romantic for her, although she didn't really know why she was surprised. If Remus could make a dry stone wall and a pint of real ale or a grimy corridor feel romantic, a clearing in the woods and a starlit sky should be no problem. Still, she'd never really thought of herself as the kind of girl who had things like this done for her; but she loved that he thought she was.

Remus swivelled and reached for the hamper behind him, bringing it a little closer. "John also provided the food," he said. "I thought you probably would have had enough of my lamentable cooking." She let out a soft breath of laughter, creating a little cloud of purple frosty breath, thinking that she actually quite liked his Marauder sandwiches. He opened the hamper and rummaged around inside, his eyebrows twitching in approval at whatever he found inside. "Sweet or savoury?"

She'd been so dazzled by the idea of what he'd done that she completely missed his question. "What?"

"Sweet or savoury?" he said. "There's soup – I think it's tomato, or hot chocolate."

"Soup."

He grinned and produced a blue checked flask from the hamper. He tapped it with his wand and then poured some out into a waiting blue mug, which matched everything else perfectly. He offered her the handle and she took it, smiling at him, and he rummaged for another moment and then handed her a bread roll. She balanced the roll on her knee and sipped her soup, watching him as he poured some for himself and settled back, blowing into his mug.

The soup was delicious. She was quite an expert on Muggle soup, having inherited her lack of cooking skills from her dad who couldn't do anything except heat things up, and this soup, she was quite certain, wasn't out of a can. She thought back to the last time Remus had brought her here and John's insistence that he should bring her for lunch, and she couldn't help thinking that if all his food was this good, she'd gladly accept the invite.

"This is really cool," she said, tearing off a chunk of bread and dunking it in her soup.

"It needs heating up?" he said, looking a little confused and watching the steam spiral up from her mug. She laughed at his misunderstanding.

"No," she said, "not the soup. This." She gestured at the clearing, still not sure it wasn't part of some fantastic Remus dream.

"Oh," he said, looking down, and smiling rather self-consciously.

"No-one's ever done anything like this for me before," she said.

"So I get points for originality if nothing else?" he said. She leant over and kissed him on the cheek.

"You get points for everything," she said, and he smiled. There was something in his eyes, though, that said that he didn't quite believe her. "I mean it, Remus," she said softly. "No-one's ever done _anything_ like this – not for me. I mean you've gone to so much trouble…."

"Oh. Well…."

He trailed off, staring intently at his soup. She'd grown accustomed to him always having an answer for whatever she said, and seeing him nervous and flustered was unusual, a bit disconcerting, even. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather be in a swanky restaurant being presented with something more in a jewellery line than soup?" he asked, tentatively meeting her eye.

So that was it, she thought. Only Remus would do something as spectacularly wonderful as this for someone and then worry that they'd rather have some Valentine's Day cliché. "Yes," she said fervently. "This is far more romantic."

"More romantic than fine food and diamonds?" he said.

"What's romantic about that? The bloke spends five minutes in his lunch hour in a jeweller's, being hassled into buying something any man could buy for any woman and then books a table at some overpriced restaurant where they eat the same food as everyone else and probably some crappy dessert in the shape of a heart."

She pulled a disgusted face in the hope that that would better convey than her words how truly she meant them. "That's not proper romance, Remus, it's a cliché – off the shelf romance that has nothing to do with either of you. This is _so_ much better."

He smiled faintly, as if he desperately wanted to believe her but couldn't quite. "Is it?"

"Of course it is," she said, inching closer, resting her hand over his and giving it a slight squeeze. He looked up, his gaze still full of uncertainty. "This is something only you could have done for me," she said. "I love it."

"Really?"

"Yes," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "Now be quiet and kiss me and make me spill my soup."

He gave her a rather playful grin and scrambled onto his knees, setting his own mug down a little way away. He took hers and set it next to it, telling her that there was nothing sexy about scalding, and then knelt in front of her. He took her face in his hands and gladly obliged with a kiss that made her insides twinkle every bit as fiercely as the stars above.

"You're all tomato-y," he said, grinning as he released her.

"So are you. I suppose it's a good job we both went for the same thing," she said.

"Yes," he said. "Or that could have been really disgusting." Their laughter mingled in a little cloud between them, and he settled back on his heels and gazed at her for a moment.

"What?" she said, wiping her face in case she had something – flour or soup – on it.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"You."

The honesty of his answer caught her a little by surprise and effectively zapped whatever words she was thinking out of her brain. He moved, sitting back next to her and handing her back her soup before reaching for his. "What about me?" she asked, her voice little more than a rather undignified squeak.

"How glad I am that you weren't too tired to do this," he said, leaning his shoulder against hers. He reached over and stole the bread roll off her knee, tore a chunk off and then put it back.

"You think that just because you've said something nice you can steal my food?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him. He grinned.

"Yes."

She scowled at him, but it was not so much half-hearted as tenth-hearted. "Well, happy Valentine's Day," she said.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he returned, clinking his mug against hers.

They both sipped their soup in silence for a moment, until she remembered something that she'd meant to tell him earlier. "You know how I was in Hogsmeade today patrolling while all the kids were there?" she said.

"Hmm," he said, wrapping his long fingers around his mug to warm them.

"Guess who I saw – "

His face lit up as he interrupted her. "Stubby Boardman."

"No – "

"Glenda Chittock."

"No – "

"Heathcote Barbary."

"No – " she said, increasingly frustrated by his interruptions, and yet amused at the same time by the glee he was taking in his guesses. "If you'll let me get a word in edgeways, I'll tell you," she said, her voice lilting with amusement. He raised his eyebrows at her in protest.

"You said guess. I'm guessing."

"We'll be a while, then," she said, rolling her eyes at him.

"Gideon Crumb?" he said, studiedly ignoring her. She shook her head, and for a moment he frowned in thought. "Merton Graves?"

"No."

"Myron Wagtail?"

"No," she said. She took a sip of her soup to hide her amusement at Remus' sudden knowledge of popular culture. "And since when do you know the name of anybody in The Weird Sisters?"

"Well you like them," he said, "so I thought I should at least learn their names."

She skipped the breath she'd been intending to take entirely. It was such a simple thing for him to have done, and yet, for some reason, it set her heart dancing a frenetic pace in her chest. "I've forgotten a couple, though, haven't I?" he said, grimacing playfully.

"Yes," she said, still amazed that he would go to the effort of specifically learning the names of anybody in her favourite band, let alone feel bad because he couldn't remember them all. His brow creased in a thoughtful frown for a moment.

"There's a Donaghan something – "

"Tremlett."

"That's it. I think I'm going to regretfully have to give up on the others. In my defence, however," he said, dropping his chin and peering up at her through the ends of his hair, "there are quite a few of them."

She watched him drinking his soup for a minute, endlessly amused by the thought she was having. "Are you becoming a fan?"

"Would being a fan involve actually listening to their records?"

"Probably."

"Then no," he said, into his mug. She laughed. She really couldn't picture him at a Weird Sisters concert, and yet, one day, she thought she might like to take him, just to see what he'd make of it.

"Well it wasn't any of them," she said, smiling to herself. "Someone much more famous."

Remus smiled in realisation. "You ran into Harry."

"I didn't actually speak to him," she said, "I was in disguise. But I did see him, _and_ he was with a girl."

"Really?" Remus said, turning to her, eyes wide in what she presumed was an imitation of Molly's inquisitive, gossip-hungry expression – one that they'd both been seeing rather a lot of recently at meetings as she probed them both about their plans for the rest of their weeks and they regretfully told her they'd be at opposite ends of the country. "And what – pray tell – were they up to?"

"They went to Madam Puddifoot's."

Remus laughed. "Well it is Valentine's Day," he said.

"You should have seen the place," she said, wincing a little at the thought. "It was like some kind of living greeting card."

"Do I want to ask what they got up to?"

"I don't really know," she said. "I thought the last thing he needed when he was trying to impress a girl was some middle-aged woman he'd never seen before peering at him through the window and grinning like an idiot."

"I can see how he might find that off-putting. Although, to be honest, he's probably not unused to that kind of thing."

"Suppose," she said. "I'm not sure things went very well."

"Why not?"

"I think he made her cry."

Remus sucked in a breath. "Yes," he said, letting it out as an amused sigh, "that would probably qualify as not going very well."

"Shame I couldn't speak to him, really," she said, "I was desperate to know who she was. She was pretty – before she started, you know, crying. I wonder what he did…."

Remus smiled sheepishly. "You know, sometimes," he said, "the boy doesn't do anything and the girl just cries – "

"It's all right," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "There's no need to get defensive. We're not talking about you."

He chuckled, and she finished her soup and dropped the mug onto the blanket next to Remus' already abandoned one. He moved a little closer, draping his arm around her shoulders and toying with the ends of her hair as they spilled over her tightly wound scarf. He bent down a little, dropping his hand to her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder, peering at her through his hair as she turned to see what he was doing. "You look very pretty tonight," he said. "Have I said that yet?"

"No," she said, "but thanks." She wondered if the blush she was no doubt sporting clashed horribly with the copper hair.

"Can I tempt you to a second course?" he said, leaning back and gesturing to her empty mug. She nodded, and he rummaged in the hamper, producing another flask in a slightly lighter blue check and a rather dainty plate of biscuits wrapped in cling film. "Now," he said, "I'm not sure I should let you have one of these."

She looked at the plate, feeling her face heat as she noticed that the biscuits on it were heart-shaped. She bit her lip and smiled at him apologetically. He peeled back the film and offered the plate to her anyway, raising an eyebrow at her as he did so. She took one and rested it on her knee as Remus cast a quick _scourgify _over their mugs and re-filled them with hot chocolate.

She cradled the mug between her hands, watching as the cloud of her breath mixed with the steam. She took a sip, warming her lips and then rested her mug on her knee, turning her attention to her biscuit. She took a bite, and it melted on her tongue, leaving the briefest cinnamon flavoured tingle in its wake. "Wow," she said. "These are amazing."

"Even though they're heart-shaped?"

She glared at him playfully over the rim of her mug. "Even though they're heart-shaped," she said.

"So," he said, smiling cheekily at her, "am I doing better than Harry, then?"

"You're doing pretty well," she said, popping the rest of the biscuit into her mouth. "But then you do have tradition on your side."

"Well, you know, the story of Valentine's Day isn't nearly as romantic as most people think it is," he said, shifting a little closer, brushing his arm against hers. His touch made her feel like she was glowing from the inside out, and the warmth in her insides was more satisfying than the soup or the hot chocolate, and even more delicious than the tingling cinnamon biscuits.

"Isn't it?" she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

"You've never heard it?"

She shook her head. "To be honest I assumed it was invented by florists," she said.

"Such cynicism in one so young," he said, his eyes twinkling. She poked him admonishingly in the ribs, and he shot her a look of playful deep protest and squirmed away from her fingers. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Go on, then," she said, rolling her eyes at him and then giving him an encouraging smile, because really, although she sometimes liked to feign protest, she liked to listen to him when he shared things he'd learned with her.

"Well," he said, blowing on his chocolate, "in the early days of ancient Rome, they celebrated the festival of Lupercalia, which was in honour of the god Lupercus, who protected people from the wolves who roamed the woods."

"Really?" she said, casting her eyes around their surroundings and finally letting her gaze rest on his. She lifted an eyebrow, and he grinned, the resonance of the story obviously not lost on him. The grin on his face and the lilt in his voice made her think that there was a chance he'd been intending to tell her this story, just waiting for an opportunity to drop it into conversation because the idea of her being alone in the woods with a werewolf on the same day as people held a festival to ward off wolves in the woods amused him. "How appropriate," she said, deciding to respond with the same light humour.

"Indeed."

"Should I sacrifice a chicken or something to keep you at bay?"

He let out a soft chuckle and his eyes danced. "There's a chance I'd prefer you to placate me with a biscuit," he said. She obligingly reached for the plate, extracted a biscuit and lifted it to his lips. He gripped it between his teeth and she giggled at him. "Thanks," he said, slightly muffled. He bit off the point of the heart and then removed it from his lips.

"Anyway," he said, resting the remains of his biscuit on his knee and rubbing his fingers vigorously against each other, attempting to dislodge the crumbs that had attached themselves to the fingertips of his gloves, "the festival fell on February the fifteenth, and on the eve, on the fourteenth, all the girls would write their names on scraps of paper and put them into jars, and the young men would draw a slip of paper out and the girl whose name was written on it would be his sweetheart for the rest of the year."

"What if they didn't fancy each other?"

"Maybe they swapped with other people," Remus said, smiling at her question, "like you do with Chocolate Frog cards if you get one you don't want."

Tonks laughed. "Do you think there was one girl no-one wanted to get?" she said. "And the bloke who got her would be all 'Noooo! Not her, again!'."

"Perhaps," he said, chuckling. "Now, the Emperor at the time, Claudius II, didn't want all of his soldiers falling in love and getting married – "

"Why not?"

Remus leant in conspiratorially. "Presumably," he said in a low teasing voice, "because men are good for nothing when they're in love." He leant back, resting on one of his hands and taking a sip of his drink with the other. His eyes twinkled mischievously in the semi-darkness, and even all wrapped up in his scarf, with no skin on show but his face, she thought he looked adorably nibbleable. "So," he continued, "he banned marriage. Valentine – who was a priest – defied the Emperor and married people in secret, and when the Emperor found out, he had Valentine thrown in prison. While he was there, he befriended his guard's daughter, and when he was finally executed, he left her a note saying 'From your Valentine'."

Tonks felt her eyes widen as she took in the romance and tragedy of the story. "Was he in love with her, then?"

"He was a priest, Tonks," Remus said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Priests aren't supposed to fall in love."

"Doesn't mean they don't."

"No," Remus said, laughing. "I suppose it doesn't. But that's not why it's called Valentine's Day. You see, Valentine was made a saint after he died, and in 496 AD, the Pope decided that February the fourteenth should be St Valentine's Day and that he should be the patron saint of lovers. Since it was a popular story, and tied in with the Lupercalia eve celebrations, it eventually replaced Lupercalia altogether."

She studied him for a moment as he drank the last of his hot chocolate and finished off his biscuit. "How on earth do you know that?" she said, eventually, when she'd finished marvelling at the sheer volume of things his head must contain.

"My mother was very into Romans," he said, setting his mug down next to the hamper, "as you may well have guessed from the name she saddled me with."

"Saddled?" she said, swirling the remains of her chocolate around in her mug before drinking it. "You don't like it?"

"I don't know," he said, glancing briefly at the sky. "I always thought it was a bit too impressive sounding for me. I think I'm a bit too feeble and weedy-looking to really pull it off."

She looked at him incredulously. "Really? What would you rather she'd called you?"

"I can't say I've really thought about it," Remus said. "Something a bit more ordinary, perhaps – something that inspires lower expectations. Stephen – or Simon, maybe."

"You're not a Simon."

"No?"

"No," she said forcefully. He raised his eyebrows at her in question. "There was this bloke in my year called Simon and he was a right pig. He used to lurk behind statues and pinch girls' bottoms when they walked past."

Remus' lips twitched in amusement, and for the briefest of seconds she wondered if he'd done the same thing. "You don't think I'm a bottom pincher?" Remus said.

"Are you?"

"Er, no," he said, smiling. A flicker of mischief flashed through his eyes. "Not unless specifically invited. What would you suggest instead?"

"Well some girls like you to give it a – "

"No – " he said, cutting her off with a raise of his hand and then laughing, a rather startled expression on his face. "I meant name-wise."

"Oh," she said, her face lighting up in embarrassment.

For a moment she wanted the frosty earth to open up and let her hide in its mouth for a while, but when she met Remus' eye he was fixing her with such a flirtatious smile that the swirl of embarrassment that had washed through her insides was replaced by a swirl of something entirely different, and not at all unpleasant. "I'm not sure I'm up to hearing whatever it was you were about to say next," he said. "If you don't want me to turn into the sex-pest Sirius has been warning you about, you probably shouldn't get me thinking about your bottom when we're alone in the woods. I'm assuming, of course, that you haven't got a sacrificial chicken somewhere on your person to protect yourself with…."

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, and watched as his eyes danced. She bit her lip until both of their amusement had abated, and then considered him for a moment. "You could be an Oliver, maybe," she offered, desperate to stop them both from thinking about what she had just said. He hummed in thought. "I like Remus, though," she said.

"Do you?"

"Suits you. And it's heaps better than Nymphadora – in fact, I can't really believe you've got the nerve to say you don't like your perfectly nice name when I'm sitting right here."

"You really don't like it?"

"No," she said. "It's a stripper's name."

Remus laughed heartily. "It is," she said, and he laughed again. "What?"

"I can't say I've met enough strippers to reach a truly accurate or informed conclusion either way," he said. "What would you pick instead of Nymphadora?"

"Dunno," she said. "I've kind of got used to Tonks. Having something – you know – girly would take some getting used to. You choose."

Remus leant back on his elbows, crossing his ankles in front of them and looking up at her thoughtfully. She was desperately intrigued to see what he'd come up with, and fidgeted while he thought. "Well," he said, "it'd have to be something unusual."

"Would it?"

"Yes," he said. "You're not a Kate or a Susan or a Claire."

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her for a moment, his brow creased with thought. "You could be an Astrid, though," he said slowly.

"Astrid?"

"Hmm. You need something with some sparkle."

"And you think Astrid has sparkle?"

His eyebrows twitched towards his hair. "You don't?"

"I think people would shorten it to Ass."

Remus' lips twitched with some suppressed amusement. "Talking of which," he said, his voice cracking as he evidently battled a laugh, "what _were_ you going to say earlier?"

She glared at him playfully, and he grinned, barely troubling to conceal that he found the whole thing hilarious. "I've got it narrowed down to slap or squeeze," he offered helpfully.

She couldn't think of a suitable retort or way to extricate herself from the situation with any real dignity, and so she rugby tackled him onto the blanket, pinning him beneath her and making a play for his ribs with her fingers. He wriggled, laughing, away from her tickles. "What?" he said between breathy guffaws as he fought off her hands. "I wouldn't want to do the wrong thing and cause offence."

"You're a big git, you know that?"

Still laughing, he caught her wrists and dragged her hands away from his sides, leaving her stranded on his chest. "Yes," he said, giving her a look of rather obviously false innocence, "but a big git who's very concerned about what you'd like him to do to your bottom."

She wriggled in a futile attempt to tickle him again, and then, sensing defeat, she bit her lip and closed her eyes. "Alright," she said. "I was going to say squeeze."

"Were you now."

Underneath her, his chest shook with laughter. "Yes," she said, opening her eyes and fixing him with a mock-stern look she knew he'd see right through, "and if you don't stop laughing you're not going to get to do either."

Remus met her eye and held it, pressing his lips firmly together and trying to echo her serious expression. He managed a quite impressive few minutes before his chest started shaking with silent laughter and his chin started wobbling madly. "Sorry," he said, finally giving in. His laughter rang through the clearing, and she had the impression that if she hadn't been pinning him to the ground, he'd have doubled over.

As his amusement abated, he released her wrists, having apparently decided she was trustworthy, and rested his newly unoccupied hands on her waist while she rested hers on his chest. "Am I forgiven?" he said, grinning.

"That depends entirely on how you're going to apologise."

Remus did what any man pinned to a picnic blanket in the middle of the night would do. He reached up and smoothed her hair away from her face, and then brought her face to his and kissed her affectionately.

As affection and apology became rather subsumed by something more fevered, she tried to memorise every sensation in case they wouldn't get a chance to do this again for weeks. She clung desperately to him, trying to remember exactly what every little tremor through her body felt like and exactly how he'd produced them, fascinated by each tug of his lips on hers and the swirling sensations they produced in her stomach, and every whimper she elicited from him was catalogued for later. But his lips were so warm and accommodating beneath hers that they absolutely dazzled her, and as his fingers roamed over her scarf and towards her hair the only thought she had was how she wished their scarves didn't keep getting in the way.

She pulled away slightly, thrilling at the disappointed look in his eyes. She let out a small frustrated huff. "We're both wearing far too many clothes to do this properly," she said.

"Nonsense," he said, and before she had chance to argue, he pulled her tighter to him and rolled her onto her back. She giggled and he propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her with a rather mischievous expression on his face. "We just need to be a bit creative," he said. He took out his wand and conjured another blanket, thick and fleecy, unfurling it over them and leaning over her to make sure she was properly covered, before raising an eyebrow at her and returning his lips to hers. "Now," he mumbled, snuggling closer, barely pausing to let the words out, "you can take off whatever you want."

She giggled against his mouth, feeling him smile in response between kisses. He tore his lips away from hers, and placed rather delicate kisses along her cheek, making his way to her ear before he slowly started undoing her scarf. She lifted her head a little to let him take it off altogether and he wriggled his fingers out of his gloves, and gently ran them up and down the revealed skin as his lips made their way back to hers. Just the feel of his fingertips on her neck made her heart thunder in her chest, and she reciprocated the gesture, taking his scarf off a little more clumsily than he'd removed hers and then tossing it aside.

He kissed her more passionately, and his fingers wandered down the front of her coat, finding the buttons and undoing them one by one as cautiously and deliberately as if she was naked underneath, and her stomach fluttered into life as his fingers moved slowly lower. He slipped his hands inside her coat, finding her waist and easing himself closer as he rested against her side. "Better?" he whispered against her neck before pressing his lips to her skin. She could only murmur in reply as the sensation of his breath on her skin made her feel as if turning into a puddle was a very distinct possibility. She fastened her fingers around his buttons and undid them, sliding her hands into the warm gap between his layers as he kissed her into a state of blissful oblivion.

Night time slowed around them, allowing her the time to think that this was a very, very good idea. She couldn't imagine anything more perfect than being here, under the stars and a lazy swathe of trees, sandwiched between two blankets with Remus. She liked the different pace of his kisses, how one minute he'd be soft and slow and delicious, and the next he'd respond to her touch by being more insistent, hungrier, nipping at her skin and holding her exactly where he wanted her, which, more often than not, was exactly where she wanted to be.

Eventually, he was gently pulling away and gazing at her with the same expression he often had after she kissed him – one of almost schoolboy cheekiness, a grin that almost threatened to fall off the sides of his face entirely, his hair all over the place. She grinned back, liking that it was her who'd put the grin there and made his hair look like that, and as she settled against his side, her head on his shoulder, and his arm around her, she wondered why she liked messing him up so much.

She followed his gaze up to the stars above them. "Do you have a favourite star?" he said, softly, breathing the words right against her ear as his hand settled on the small of her back, tracing a pattern there beneath the blanket they were both snuggled under.

"Me?" she said, her voice low and a little breathy. "No. Crap at Astronomy – too much sitting still and actually paying attention to the teacher. I can barely find the sun without assistance."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he said, nuzzling the side of her face. "I suppose you liked Potions because of the possibility for explosions?"

"Oh yes," she said, "and the look on Snape's face when I did something right was always priceless. He had this particular frustrated sneer and he'd get this little crease between his eyebrows as if he was looking for something to criticise and just hated that he couldn't find anything."

Remus dropped his head back onto the blanket. "Oh now I feel old," he said.

"What?" she said, propping herself up on her elbow. "Why?"

"Snape's my age," Remus said, sheepishly meeting her eye, "and he was your teacher."

"So?"

"Nothing," he said, "just – well – the idea that I'm old enough to be your teacher is a bit disconcerting."

She smiled at him, reaching down to thread her fingers through his hair. "Snape seems decades older than you," she said, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his lips, "and he's not nearly as fanciable."

She kissed him again, and Remus smiled under her lips. "Glad you think so."

She pulled away, biting her lip against a grin. "I bet all the girls fancied you when you were their teacher," she said. His brow furrowed in disbelief, and possibly a little horror.

"I'm not sure I'm exactly teenage fantasy material," he said, seeming amused at the very suggestion.

"I wouldn't be so sure," she said. "You'd be amazed by the weirdoes some teenage girls find attractive."

"Thanks," he said, grabbing her waist and tickling her ferociously until she begged for him to stop and told him she was sorry. He relented, grinning.

Giggling, her sides still aching from his assault, she settled on her back next to him, staring up at the sky, and he searched for her hand under the blanket and laced his fingers through hers.

"What's so exciting about the stars, then?" she said.

"What's _not_ exciting about the stars?" he said. "There's some very racy stories attached to most of them."

"Racy?" she said.

"Oh yes. Nearly all Greek and Roman legends have some vaguely deviant aspect."

"Well go on then," she said, jostling his shoulder with hers, "if you're old enough to be my teacher, I might as well learn something."

Remus let out a rather breathy chuckle. "What did you have in mind?"

"Teach me about the stars."

"Alright," he said. "Let's start with your dear cousin, shall we, since the star – very much like the man, rather likes to draw attention to itself."

"What have you done with him tonight, anyway?" she said.

"I asked Mundungus to pop in and keep him entertained. I suspect they'll have gotten drunk and played cards or something."

"Was that a good idea?"

"Probably not," Remus sighed, "but it doesn't have to be a good idea if it's the only one you've got. I assumed you wouldn't want me to bring him along – in my experience, the only thing more annoying than ants at a picnic is Sirius."

She laughed, and Remus met her eye and smiled briefly before raising his hand and pointing a long index finger at the sky. She nestled closer and followed where he was pointing. "You see the really bright star there, just above the trees?" he said, and she nodded. "Well that's him – Sirius. Of course to hear him talk about it, you'd think the star was named after him rather than the other way round."

She sniggered. "Of course."

"I used to keep him in check by telling him there's nothing romantic or heroic about a dog's nose," Remus said.

"So he's the nose?"

"Hmm. To see the rest of the constellation, you have to imagine a dog, kind of leaping. That's the head – "

He took out his wand and traced the pattern of the constellation with it, creating a diagram that floated above them, with the constellation mapped out so that all the stars appeared joined together with a red, glittering line in a rather unmistakable dog shape. "I always think he looks like a pretty friendly fellow."

"Wow," she said, and then added, quite unnecessarily "it's a dog."

He offered her one of his reassuring, quietly amused smiles, which always made his eyes twinkle with good-natured warmth. "Well that's Canis Major," he said, "and it might interest you to know that one of the other major stars is Adhara, the maidens, which of course caused your cousin many hours of amusement – that even in astral form he had adoring ladies on hand. And next to him – there – " he traced another pattern in the sky, and more glittering red lines appeared in the shape of a rabbit, sideways on, "that's Lepus, the hare."

He indicated a couple of stars just above Sirius. "And just above Canis Major," he said, drawing the outline, "is Canis Minor."

"Aww, he's sweet," she said, looking at the outline of a very cute-looking, sitting, puppy.

"Indeed," Remus said. "And above him is Monoceros – the unicorn, which, legend has it, can only be observed by the pure of heart – which probably explains why I can't see it."

"You're not pure of heart?"

He nuzzled her temple. "Anything but," he whispered, huskily, sending shivers all the way down to her toes. "Can you see it?"

Tonks gazed at the patch of sky above the red, twinkling puppy-shaped lines. "No," she said. "I don't think so."

"So you're a bad girl?" he said in a low tone that made her stomach clench and her heart pound. She raised her head and looked at him wide-eyed, opening her mouth to protest even though she didn't know quite what she was going to say. He met her eye, his twinkling. "I like that," he said, eyebrows twitching mischievously as he cut off her non-existent protest. She gave him a half-hearted thump on the chest and then settled back on his shoulder desperately trying to contain a rather schoolgirl giggle. "Now," he said, his tone completely Professor-like once more. "The most important constellation at this time of year is Orion – "

"That's him, isn't it?" she said, pointing to the three stars in a line in the middle of the night sky to prove that she wasn't completely useless, even though she didn't think for a second that he thought she was.

"Yes," Remus said. "That's his belt."

Remus obligingly filled in the rest of what was clearly a man using a bow and arrow, standing in amongst the cluster of animals. Suddenly she wondered why she'd ever had trouble understanding Astronomy. "There are lots of interesting things about the constellation Orion," he said. "The second star of the sword, for example, isn't a star at all – it's a nebula, and I suppose you know that his shoulder is your dear aunt Bellatrix's namesake."

She shivered at the thought, and Remus pulled her closer to him, either misinterpreting her shiver and thinking she was cold, or not. Either way, he started stroking her back gently, and she wondered how she could find a gesture at once soothing and exciting. "Orion was, unfortunately, accidentally killed by his lover," he continued, a little more quietly, "and she asked Zeus to put him in the sky with his two dogs and the hare, which is why they're all together."

"How did she kill him accidentally?"

"He swam into the sea to catch a scorpion, and her brother tricked her into shooting him with an arrow." He turned his head towards her a little, his eyes roving her face questioningly. "Are you sure I'm not boring you?"

"Of course you're not," she said, looking up at him, tightening her arm around his waist. "I'm interested."

"Oh," he said, offering her a slight smile and a tiny little sigh of what she thought was probably astonishment. He swallowed before returning his gaze to the sky. "Well, that's Taurus," he said, tracing the picture of a bull in the sky above them. "The most interesting element is that little cluster there," he said, indicating what she supposed was the bull's back. "It's like a little mini-plough. That's the Pleiades – they're the seven sisters, the children of Pleione, who was a sea nymph, and Atlas. Only six stars are normally visible – Alcyone, Electra – oh that's a thought," he said, shifting to meet her eye, "you could be an Electra."

"You think?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Evidently you don't," he said, smiling slightly, looking back up at the sky. "Where was I?"

"Trying to give me another stripper name."

He looked back. "You seem to know an awful lot about strippers," he said.

"Seven sisters," she prompted.

"Ah, yes," he said, turning back to the sky once more, the trace of a smile on his lips. "Alcyone, Electra – who as far as I'm aware was not a stripper – Taygeta, Calaeno, Asterope and Maia. Now they all married gods, and so they burn fiercely, but the seventh sister, Merope, married a mortal, and out of shame she shines less brightly. They became stars because of Orion – he was after them, and they prayed to Zeus to help them. He turned them into doves and eventually placed them in the sky just out of the reach of Orion, so he could see them but never catch them."

She grinned. "Up close do you think he looks a bit frustrated?"

"I don't doubt it," he said. "Just above that is Perseus carrying the severed head of Medussa, but that's a bit gruesome so we'll just skip over them, and then there's Auriga and his goats, and then Gemini – those two bright stars there," he said, pointing at them, high in the sky above them. "The lower one, the yellowy one – that's Castor, and the other one is Pollux. The interesting thing is that Castor isn't a star at all – it's six, two binary pairs and two red dwarfs."

"Uh-huh," she said, without the faintest idea what he was talking about. He let out an amused sigh.

"I've lost you."

"Only a little bit," she said. She gave him a reassuring squeeze, and he kissed the side of her forehead.

"Well, Castor and Pollux were brothers – well, half brothers, really," he said, "one half each of two sets of twins, born at the same time to the same mother, but with different fathers."

She tried for a moment to make sense of that in her own head. Finding that she couldn't, she asked "How does that work?", a little appalled as well as baffled.

"No idea," he said, his tone light and amused. "Oh, and one of the fathers was Zeus masquerading as a swan."

"A swan?"

"Told you it was racy," he said, and she felt him grin against her hair. "Castor was mortal and Pollux was immortal, and when Castor died, Pollux was grief-stricken and asked Zeus to let him die so they could stay together. Zeus put them both in the sky as a symbol of brotherly love and devotion."

She smiled. She liked the way he told stories. She thought he could probably recount a shopping list and make it sound beautiful and whimsical. "What else?"

"Well," he said, "just there in Monoceros there's a lovely spiral galaxy, 3300 light years away, with a black hole in the centre, but, let's face it, it's not really as sexy as the others with a name like M50."

She laughed, snuggling closer to him to stave off the cold, and he rearranged the blanket around them, pulling it right up to her chin. "How come you know so much about the stars?" she asked. She knew the things that he'd told her – the stories attached – weren't things he'd learnt at school.

"I was fascinated by the stars when I was little," he said. "I used to creep out of bed at night and open the curtains so I could look at them."

"Really?" she said. "Weren't you scared of the dark?"

"No," he said. "I was scared of the moon, though," he added quietly, "so I'd position the curtains so I couldn't see it, and look out and imagine that there were only stars and no moon at all. The Gemini stars were my favourite – I'd look for them every night and pretend that they were looking out for me, as if they were my friends – sometimes I'd even tell them stories about what I'd been up to."

She pictured him all alone and gazing up at the stars and it tugged at her heart. "Oh don't look at me like that," he said, laughing.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm some tragic figure," he said, "like I should be wafting about a moor somewhere whimpering the name Heathcliff."

She chuckled. "Sorry," she said, "it's just – well, you must have been lonely."

"You might have noticed we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere here," he said. "There weren't that many children for me to play with when I was growing up, even before I got bitten, and no other wizarding children at all, so…. I don't think it ever really occurred to me to be lonely, though, to be honest. I had too many other things to do."

"Like what?"

"Things to ponder, questions to answer," he said in a playfully whimsical tone. She gave him an encouraging smile, and he chuckled at himself briefly before continuing. "Sometimes I'd stay up most of the night thinking about the stars. I used to wonder all kinds of things."

"Like what?"

He let out a soft breath of laughter. "Well," he said. "I used to wonder about the moon. If I lived on the moon it'd always be full to me, so would I be a wolf there all the time? If I lived on another planet – one where I couldn't see the moon, would I still be a werewolf? Would I change when the moon was full on earth even if I couldn't see it? And if I lived on a planet with more than one moon – like Jupiter, would I transform when any one of them was full or would it not work the same because they're different moons?"

He peered down at her, and although he was smiling, she could tell he was a little bit wary about what her reaction might be. "You must have been a very strange boy," she said, deciding that rather than over-analysing everything he said she should just say the first thing that came into her head.

"I daresay some people would say I'm a pretty strange man," he said, squeezing her.

"I daresay," she said.

"And you haven't even heard the worst yet," he said. She assumed, since he was continuing, that what she had responded with had been all right. "I knew that some wizards could Apparate right across the world to different countries, so I used to wonder whether – if I grew up to be powerful enough – I might be able to Apparate to the moon and find out."

"And can you?" she said.

"I don't know," he said, laughing. "I haven't tried it yet. When I was about fourteen it suddenly occurred to me that if I Apparated to the moon and then _did_ transform I'd be stuck. I wouldn't be able to Disapparate and transform back. I'd just be a lonely wolf, running around the moon, all alone, forever. I was gutted."

She laughed, but through her amusement, she wondered how he'd done it – how he'd taken all the horrible experiences of his life on the chin, how he was still cheerful, how he could still laugh.

"I can understand that," she said, quietly. "How you'd have questions that you can't really ask other people because there's no way they can understand why you want to know. It's weird being the only one."

"Hmm."

She didn't normally talk about being a Metamorphmagus – aside from letting people know that she was one and giving in to the occasional desire to show off or shock people – but Remus had never asked any of the questions she dreaded having to answer, and the fact that he hadn't, coupled with how open he'd been about something she knew it must be hard to talk about, made her keen to venture information.

Besides everything else, she wanted him to know that she knew what it was like – that she was just as strange as he was. "I used to wonder whether one day I'd get stuck," she said. He turned to look at her.

"Stuck?"

"Yes," she said. "Whether one day I'd run out of morphs – I'd have used them all up, or something and I'd be stuck with whatever face I was pulling at the time. I used to ask my mum and dad about it but they just thought I was being stupid."

"I think it sounds like a perfectly sensible question," he said.

"But you thought you could Apparate to the moon," she said, "so what you think is sensible probably isn't what other people think is sensible."

He chuckled. "No," he said. "Probably not. Did you ever find the answer?"

"No," she said, sighing. "Everyone said it was ridiculous, would never happen, but no Metamorphmagus ever recorded every morph they made, so I used to think, well, maybe they never reached their limit. And I might one day."

He shifted a little so he could look at her properly, and fixed her with a gently inquisitive gaze. "What was it like?" he asked quietly. "Growing up."

She smiled. She was used to questions about what she was – in fact, she'd never been out with a man for this long without him asking about her morphing. More often than not it came up the instant they found out, whether it was simple curiosity about what she 'really' looked like, what she could do, or something altogether seedier, about whether she wouldn't mind doing this or that for them – whether she wouldn't mind being a little blonder, or bigger in some areas, smaller in others, whether she wouldn't mind turning into someone else entirely.

But Remus wasn't like that. He treated her wild changes of appearance as if, to him, they were no different to her getting her hair cut, or wearing it differently, or adding a slide. He noticed the difference, commented on it, told her he thought she looked nice or pretty or lovely, but he always managed to make her feel as if it wasn't the differences he was seeing. She liked his question. It was about her, not it.

"Oh well puberty was fun," she said. "All those hormones racing around and moods – my hair would go different colours when I was in a strop – and sometimes I wouldn't even know I'd done it."

"Really?"

"Hmm."

"What colours should I look out for?" he asked.

"There's a really violent turquoise you want to hope you never see," she said. "That's my proper teenage strop colour. My dad used to tease me about it – I'd come down turquoise, and he'd say 'Look out, Nym's in a blue mood', just to see if he could make it go orange, which was my proper angry colour."

Remus smiled at her, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. "Your dad calls you Nym?"

"Yes," she said, "but he's the only one who's allowed to, so don't get any ideas."

He grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it."

They were quiet for a moment, and she was left with the impression that the next move was hers – that if she wanted to talk about it, she could, but that he wouldn't press it. She watched him watch her hair fall through his fingers for a while, before she spoke. "Does it bother you?" she said.

"Does what bother me?" he said, shifting his focus from the ends of her hair to her eyes.

"That when you show up to meet me somewhere you never know quite what I'm going to look like."

He smiled. "Does it bother you that every time you show up to meet _me_ I'll be wearing exactly the same boring face you saw last time?"

She chuckled. She'd never really thought of it like that before. "No," she said, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him, "of course not. And your face isn't boring."

"You wouldn't prefer it if it was a little flashier sometimes? If I could be dark and handsome one minute and all Nordic and chiselled the next?"

"No," she said, laughing.

"Why not?"

"Well it doesn't really matter, does it? It'd still be you I was with."

As she uttered the words she saw what he'd done. He raised an eyebrow at her, questioning whether realisation had dawned. "Oh very clever," she said, and his face dissolved into a smile. He reached up and ran his fingers gently over the curve of her cheek.

"It doesn't matter how you arrange your features, or how long your hair is or what fantastical colour you make it," he said. "It's always you on the inside, and that makes you beautiful, whatever you look like. I think I'd pick you out of a crowd of thousands in a second."

She thought her insides might actually have collapsed.

She let out a small and quite pathetic sounding "Oh.". He turned towards her slightly, gently drawing her face to his and placing an extremely gentle kiss on her lips. Oddly she found it no less sexy than a full-on snog, and she responded, she suspected, rather more urgently and hungrily than he was expecting. Still, it wasn't as if he wasn't more than capable of rising to the challenge, and he held her face in his hands and kissed her until she was convinced he'd turned her insides to mush and her brain to stardust.

"So no," he murmured against her lips, voice rife with amusement as she collapsed against him, "it doesn't bother me."

As they kissed, she thought about falling for him, how very, very easy it would be to be completely and totally in love with him. It was a tantalising thought.

When they finally dragged their lips away from each other, she nestled on his shoulder and he stroked lazy circles on her back. She allowed her eyelids to fall, feeling utterly content and warm as she snuggled closer to him.

Something gentle and icy settled on her forehead, and she opened her eyes and saw clouds in the sky and the odd glistening white drop descending towards them.

"Snow," she said, smiling. "Did you do that?"

"You think I can control the weather?"

"To be honest, Remus, I wouldn't put it past you."

For some reason her comment seemed to please him, and he beamed, his chest shaking with laugher. She thought it was probably the most perfect smile she'd ever seen, and she shivered when she thought that she was the cause of it. "We'd better go," he said. "Sirius is probably going to give me a hard enough time about keeping you out half the night, let alone returning you with hypothermia."

She obligingly made her face even paler and her lips slightly blue as she pouted at him, and he smiled. "Very fetching," he said. He traced the outline of her lips with his thumb before parting them slightly and placing his own over them briefly.

When the snow began to fall in earnest they scrambled to their feet, and Remus packed their things away with a lazy swish of his wand that made her insanely envious. He insisted on conjuring her a hat for the walk back to the pub, and she pulled the pink and black striped bobble hat, which matched her gloves and long pink scarf perfectly, down over her ears as they walked through the trees. He'd protested about the orange bobble hat with ear flaps she'd conjured for him in return for a moment, before she'd reminded him that he _had_ said they were supposed to be amusing hats, but as she looked at him through the darkness she thought that even with ridiculous headgear, he looked very handsome.

When they reached the pub, everything was quiet. "Would you keep a look out for a moment?" Remus whispered. Tonks nodded, looking out across the fields through the falling snow, and back towards the pub, while Remus sprang up onto a rickety bench against the wall and took out his wand. He removed the shrunken picnic hamper from his pocket, and then opened a small window and craned his neck to peer into the room, before levitating it inside and presumably returning it to full size. She expected him to leap down immediately, but instead he kept his wand raised, performing a couple of spells that she couldn't identify. "What did you just do?" she whispered.

"Nothing," Remus said.

"Didn't look like nothing."

Remus slowly closed the window and got down off the bench gingerly. She fixed him with her best Auror gaze, which she suspected was only slightly compromised by the bobble hat. "Alright," Remus said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and rolling his eyes, "I did the washing up. Sometimes if he's really tired John leaves it until the morning, and I know he had a load of people in for a four course meal tonight, so…."

"The washing up?"

"And cleaned the kitchen," he added reluctantly, "as a thank you."

Tonks grinned at his thoughtfulness, and Remus searched the snowy gravel at his feet intently, giving her the distinct impression that he might be blushing. "Least I could do, considering…."

"Won't he think it's a bit weird, though," Tonks said, "when he comes in and finds everything spick and span?"

Remus smiled. "He'll know it was me."

"Oh," she said, smiling at him. "You do this kind of thing a lot, do you?"

"No," he said, his lips twitching with amusement. "I left him a note."

She giggled and his lips gave in to a lopsided smile as he pulled her towards him. "Where to, then?" he said. "Where are you staying tonight?"

She settled on Grimmauld, and after she'd bid Remus a long goodnight filled with a dozen or so kisses, she climbed into bed and lay smiling in the dark, thinking about the way he'd shot shooting stars right through her heart.

She wished she could do something romantic for him, something to let him know how much what he'd done had meant to her….

On impulse she got up, fetched an empty jam jar from the kitchen and left it outside his door for him to find in the morning.

From her doorway, she could just make out the words '_Nymphadora Tonks_' scrawled on the scrap of parchment inside.

She smiled to herself as she closed the door behind her. She couldn't imagine any girl ever objecting to having Remus draw her name out of jar and pick her as his sweetheart.

She just hoped he wouldn't want to swap her like a Chocolate Frog card any time soon.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Anyone who reviews this one gets a posy of flowers from a Remus of their choice: Flirty Remus comes with gerberas, Shy Remus is all about peonies, Sexy Remus offers red chrysanthemums and Mischievous Remus has white camellias. Anyone who knows why Remus gave Tonks the flowers he did gets an extra big bunch for knowing just as much as I do about Victorian floriography ;). **


	11. The Werewolf Thing

Tonks sat in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, staring vaguely into space while Mundungus Fletcher told Sirius what price he could get for the silverware, Sirius ranted about whatever had gotten his goat that minute, Moody and Kingsley argued about Ministry politics, and Remus tried his best to look interested.

She'd been trying to find a moment alone with Remus all evening, but Moody and Kingsley had dropped by after their shift and Mundungus had called in in the hope that he might be able to beat Sirius at poker again, and consequently all she and Remus had been able to do was share the odd furtive, amused glance as the kitchen turned into Kings Cross Station around them.

As the clock struck eleven, Remus cleared his throat. "Well," he said, "it's getting late." Sirius grunted in vague recognition that someone had spoken, but other than that, everybody ignored him and there was a distinct lack of people taking his hint, getting to their feet and leaving them to it. He shot Tonks a significant glance and stood up, having apparently decided to try a different approach. "I think I might say goodnight," he said.

"How are you fixed for this week, Lupin?" Moody growled. Remus closed his eyes for the briefest of moments in frustration at being thwarted, and then sat back down again, shooting Tonks an infuriated look that she had to turn away to keep from sniggering at.

When Moody had exhausted every possible permutation of their schedule and had become engaged in a fierce discussion about demarcation disputes between the Aurors' Department and Magical Law Enforcement with Kingsley, Remus met her eye and smiled. He leant forward a little and lowered his voice, even though she was fairly certain that between Sirius ranting about being a prisoner in his own home, and Mundungus' bargaining, no-one was bothered about eavesdropping. Still, the stomach tingles associated with his conspiratorial air and how close he now was were worth it, even if it was unnecessary.

"Are you staying here tonight?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her. She shook her head.

"I left some files at mine that I've got to get back tomorrow before anyone notices they're missing, so…." Remus smiled.

"Why don't I see you home, then?" he said. It was an enticing idea, and she returned his smile, raising an eyebrow at him in entirely playful suspicion.

"And why on earth would I need seeing home?" she said.

"We live in dangerous times," he said, with mock seriousness.

"But I _am_ an Auror," she said.

"Yes," he said, "and if we get attacked, I fully expect you to defend me while I cower in the corner. However, I would like the peace of mind of knowing you were safely tucked up in bed."

"Really?" she said, raising her eyebrow higher and smirking at him.

He tilted his head down slightly and his hair fell into his eyes. "Do I detect," he said, his lips twitching in the effort of smothering his grin, "that you may have seen through my shallow ploy to get you alone?"

"Yes."

"Damn," he said, rolling his eyes.

"I didn't say I didn't like your shallow ploy," she said, "I just wanted you to know that I know what you're up to." He smiled cheekily, and she dipped her head closer to his and nodded towards the door. "Quick, while everyone's being constantly vigilant in the other direction," she said, and, laughing quietly, they both got to their feet.

Sirius broke off his current whinge and looked up. "Where are you two off to?"

"Remus is just seeing me home," Tonks said, and then, seeing three sets of raised eyebrows and one vague, drunken, leer from Mundungus, added "I said I'd lend him a book."

It was the best she could come up with on the spur of the moment.

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Sirius muttered. Remus sighed and rubbed his chin, but if any of the others had heard him, they didn't comment.

"Goodnight, then," Kingsley said. "Don't forget those – "

"I won't."

They Apparated to the corridor outside her flat, and she started undoing the charms on the door immediately, since she guessed that Remus really did have other intentions than just seeing her home. At least she hoped he did, and if he didn't, well, he would once she got her hands on him. "Do you think anyone thinks for a second I'm lending you a book?" she said.

"No," Remus replied, and she chuckled quietly so as not to wake her neighbours. Remus rested his hand on the small of her back, shooting a jolt right up her spine.

"You don't seem that bothered," she said, turning to look at him.

"Well," he said, "I daresay Molly will have a thing or two to say about me not filling her in on every single move, and I have no particular desire to be any more the source of Order gossip than I am usually, but – "

"You really think people are gossiping about us?"

"Probably," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Do you mind?"

Tonks gestured vaguely at her shoulder-length, forest green curls. "Do I look like the kind of person who cares that people are talking about her?" she said. He laughed softly and stepped closer, nuzzling her neck through the hair he didn't apparently mind.

The door opened and she shuffled through with Remus firmly attached to her. He closed the door behind them and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. With a lazy and rather distracted flick of her wand the grate leapt into life, casting a pleasing orange glow around the room, and she illuminated a couple of lamps too. The result, she thought, was quite romantic. "Oh well it's all right for you," Remus murmured, tightening his grip on her waist a little. She wondered if he could feel the shivers in her stomach. He pressed a warm, soft kiss to the skin he'd managed to find between curls, and his lips on her neck sent a feeling not unlike a Jelly-Legs Jinx to her knees.

"What do you mean?" she said, finding that forming actual words was a bit more of a challenge than she usually found it.

"Well, _I'm_ the one people are going to think is some lecherous old man – you're the sweet innocent girl I'm taking advantage of."

She pulled away abruptly and turned around to face him. "People really think I'm sweet and innocent?" she asked incredulously. Remus let out a long huff and folded his arms across his chest. She'd have thought him exceptionally miffed, but his eyes had their tell-tale playful glint, which was only exaggerated by the firelight.

"Thank you," he said, raising an eyebrow archly. "It's always nice to know you think of me as old and lecherous."

She bit back a laugh. "You know I don't think of you as old," she said, not entirely able to suppress the humour in her voice.

"Oh so you have decided I'm lecherous, then?" he said, with rather impressive mock-huffiness.

She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his neck and grinning at him suggestively as she pressed against him. "I _was_ kind of hoping you might be," she said. "If you don't plan to be a little bit lecherous, that subtle exit we just made was rather a waste of time, wasn't it?"

He gazed down at her seriously for a moment, and then grinned at her rather devilishly. "Lecherous it is, then," he said, unfolding his arms and wrapping them around her, holding her snugly against him. He held her gaze as he bent his head to hers agonisingly slowly, and by the time his lips met hers her heart was pounding and she was already breathing a little faster in anticipation. Her eyes fluttered closed entirely of their own accord the instant his lips touched hers.

The kiss was intense, and as one of his hands drifted up from her waist to cup her jaw and hold their mouths firmly together, her insides gave up any pretence that they were going to go through their usual preliminary flutters and went straight for outright collapse. She was pretty certain that had he not have had her firmly anchored to him, she might well have been knocked right off her feet.

She responded eagerly, sliding her hands over his shoulders and underneath his coat, easing it off him. He seemed to get the idea and didn't protest, shrugging out of it without troubling to break their kiss even when his coat fell to the floor behind him. She made a vaguely apologetic noise against his lips, and, chuckling softly, he helped her out of her coat, draping it over his arm rather than letting it fall to the floor. He broke away, retrieving his coat from the pile it lay crumpled in and turning to hang them both up behind the door. She smiled at how at ease he seemed to feel here, how well his things seemed to fit with hers. He pulled her to him as he stepped back.

"Now," Remus said, with a huskiness that did nothing to quell the vigorous protest her lips were making at being separated from his. He rested his forehead lightly on hers, his palm curled around her neck, his fingers tickling their way into her hair as he gently caressed her skin. "Do you want to go through the pretence of offering me a drink, or shall I just manhandle you to the sofa?"

The flirty look in his eyes lit a fire right inside her, and all of a sudden she was grateful for Moody and his politics and Mundungus and his bartering and Sirius and his ranting for giving her the best of anticipatory flutters now and presumably putting Remus in the mood to cut to the chase. "Are you thirsty?" she said, glancing up, her voice surprisingly soft and low. She pressed further into him, running her fingertips lightly over his chin and easing his head down back towards hers. He shook his head, a rather gleeful flash passing through his eyes. She just managed to get out the words "Me neither" before he captured her lips again.

He smiled against her mouth, and, as they stumbled across the lounge and Remus lowered her onto the sofa, gingerly settling on top of her, Tonks couldn't help thinking that she rather liked being manhandled by Remus.

As he kissed her again and again working his fingers into her hair and tracing the contours of her neck with his fingers, she thought that she quite liked his idea of lecherous and she _definitely_ liked snogging him on the sofa, and she set about showing him just how much.

She was certain that other things existed – the sofa beneath them, her flat, the rest of the world beyond – but none of it seemed quite as important or worthy of her attention as the sensation of his hair tickling her fingers, or the earnest tease of his lips as they moved over hers, or the shiver that went through her as he took her bottom lip between his, or his hand finding the small of her back. He eased her closer, somehow finding a spot under the hem of her shirt that sent a rush of fresh tingling sensations through her, making her doubt that there was anything but him after all.

She rested her fingertips on his jaw, unsure why she thought it was sexy to feel him kissing her through her fingertips as well as her lips, but she did – her stomach seemed to be constantly folding in on itself, and the way he was running his fingers over her neck, tracing elaborate figure of eight patterns on her skin, wasn't helping. She shifted against him, murmuring incoherently, and he shifted a little so that he was more on his side, drawing her out from underneath him and settling her against him. She hooked her leg slightly over his, and she took the low mumble in his throat as indication that he approved.

She slid her hand down his side and, as he smiled against her mouth and she felt his stomach tense underneath her fingers, she remembered how ticklish he was. "Sorry," she murmured.

"Quite all right," he said, his voice little more than breath on her lips. He trailed soft kisses along her jaw and down onto her neck as he caressed her hip, and she wondered idly, with a rather drowsy brain, which action was most responsible for her wanting to melt.

His hand slipped over her hip and down her thigh, pausing at her knee before moving back up again, slowly but rather surely, as if he was savouring ever inch, or knew that doing it slowly was sending little shivers right through her. She mumbled her endorsement for his actions, and Remus pulled back a little and kissed her chin softly, but didn't stop what he was doing. "You have very sexy legs, Tonks," he murmured, in the same tone in which she imagined he would have made an observation about some new behaviour he'd observed in grindylows – slightly surprised, musing on the thought as if he was saying it as much to himself as her. He met her eye, and she couldn't help the smile that formed in her stomach as she noted the distinctly devilish, flirty glimmer in his. "Well, I mean you have a pretty sexy everything…."

Her insides danced at the compliment. Even though she'd been presented with some pretty compelling evidence that that was what he thought, it was nice to hear it out loud.

It was nice to have him this close, too, close enough that she could see all the different colours in his eyes and watch his lips for the first hint of a smile, close enough to feel the warmth of his body and have his cool, crisp smell settle on her skin. He adjusted a cushion behind their heads and settled against it, and she brushed his hair back from his face her heart pounding no less fiercely than it had been when they were kissing. "So that's your thing, is it? Legs?" she said, not troubling to remove her fingers from his face or hide the amusement in her voice. Remus' eyebrows darted up in surprise.

"My thing?"

"You know, the thing you like most. Some blokes like legs, and some blokes prefer other bits."

He smiled a most adorable sheepish smile, glancing down, and then raised an eyebrow at her. "I have to pick?"

"Mmm."

"Don't I get to have all of you?"

She twitched her eyebrows at him, and he ducked his head a little, looking away almost bashfully as he let out a soft breath of laughter. He propped himself up on one elbow, and smiled down at her, winding his fingers into her hair. She watched him watch his fingers separating the curls, utterly fascinated by the way they sprang back into shape however he tried to tease them. He smiled when he realised she was watching and met her eye. "I wouldn't say I had a particular thing for legs," he said. He leant in conspiratorially, lowering his voice to little more than a whisper. "But yours are very nice." Tonks grinned.

"So what is it, then?"

"That would be telling," he said.

She took advantage of the position of her hand on his waist to give him a quick admonishing tickle, but even though he squirmed away and laughed she didn't think he was going to confess anytime soon. She abandoned her attempt, thinking that it'd probably be perfectly obvious sooner or later, and kissed him softly instead, and he threaded his fingers into her hair and returned the kiss with enthusiasm before lifting away again. "What's yours, then?" he said, grinning.

"Wouldn't _you_ like to know," she said, watching his eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiled.

"I would," he said. He leant forward and pressed his lips to her cheek. "Although I appreciate that while there are lots of lovely bits of you to choose from, _I _am a rather poor and scrawny specimen."

"You're just saying that so I say something nice about you."

"You know," he said, smiling against her skin, his words tickling her cheek, "I'm fairly sure I never used to be this easy to see through."

She couldn't resist it. "Out of practice, Remus?"

He pulled back, open mouthed with amused indignation. She chuckled lightly, and he raised an eyebrow at her before abandoning the curl he had been wrapping around his fingers and using them instead to tilt her head back. He ducked his head and found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck, just next to her ear. He hovered there for a moment, and his breath on her skin – which he must have known was driving her crazy – was almost enough to have her apologising for suggesting any such thing. He brushed his lips so faintly across her skin that she could barely feel anything but the shivers the action produced, and when he finally gave up teasing her and lowered his lips for a proper kiss she let out a tiny shuddering breath it came as a total surprise that she'd been holding. He took that as a cue to make his way down her neck maddeningly, spectacularly, slowly and she squirmed into him, desperate to get closer. She assumed that when he reached the base of her neck he'd stop, but he didn't, easing the neck of her shirt aside and nipping at her shoulder, before kissing it. She swallowed rather obviously.

"What was that you were saying?" he said.

"Nothing," she said, and even though his tone had been a little smug, she couldn't help giggling. "Didn't say a word."

"Good."

Apparently satisfied that he'd made his point, he allowed her to pull his head back up to hers and kissed her, and this time there was nothing particularly teasing about it. She took hot, ragged breaths against his lips, revealing in the thrill of him doing the same, and his hands were a little bolder than they had been, igniting her skin as they ranged over her arms and down her back, venturing a little lower than they had been before. He gave her bottom a slight squeeze and she felt him smile against her lips, knowing that she was doing the same, as if it was some private joke they shared. She slipped her hands around his waist as he pulled her closer, and, finding that his shirt had come un-tucked she decided to make the most of the opportunity. The skin at the base of his spine was warm and she couldn't resist the way he moved beneath her fingers as they made their way around to his side.

"I should go," he said. He mumbled the words against her lips a little half-heartedly, and she wondered why he was even suggesting it, and tried to distract him with kisses.

"Mmm-hmm."

"At least one of us has a job to get to in the morning."

"Mmm," she said, shifting against him, pressing her lips to the skin on his jaw.

"I'm trying to be a gentleman," he said, chuckling breathily as he looked down at her, eyes dancing. "You're not making it easy."

"A gentleman?" she said sceptically. "Have you forgotten where your hand is?"

"I said I was _trying_," he said, raising an eyebrow at her, "not succeeding. Anyway, given our – er – position, there are plenty less gentlemanly things I could be doing." She grinned at him cheekily.

"Promises, promises, Remus."

He closed his eyes, seemingly so that whatever battle was taking place on the inside could happen in private. "Right," he said, and she had the impression he was trying desperately to adopt one of his Professor tones in spite of the smile that was definitely pending. "I'm going."

"Uh-huh," she said, with a rather disbelieving chuckle. He kept up the charade for a few seconds and then kissed her again.

"No, really, I am," he said, shifting a little to nuzzle and then nibble her ear so that his words very nearly got lost in her hair.

"That would be a lot more convincing if you'd moved," she said, rolling her head towards his so that she could nibble his earlobe a little in return. He squirmed.

"I'm trying," he said. "It'd be a great deal easier if you'd stop – "

"Doing that?" she said, continuing to make her way down his neck.

"Hmm, yes," he murmured in a tone that said that her stopping was the very last thing he wanted. He dissolved into a series of incoherent sighs that she thought had probably started out as words.

She liked it, the idea that she could reduce him to these sounds, and she couldn't resist teasing him a little. "All right, then," she said, and drew her lips away, resting her head back down on the cushion beneath her. He opened his eyes and offered her a playfully disappointed frown.

"Spoilsport," he said.

"You said you wanted me to stop so you could leave," she said, trying to sound reasonable even though she was smiling at him teasingly.

"I did," he said, nodding his head wearily.

Then he abandoned his pretence, twitched his eyebrows at her and resumed his place at her lips. After a couple of heavenly minutes, she said "You still haven't moved."

"No, I have," he protested earnestly, undoing his words immediately by pressing another fervent kiss to her lips. "I'm practically – " He peppered her jaw with delicious soft kisses. " – at the door," he added, grinning.

"At the door?"

"Hmm," he murmured, pulling away slightly. "Listen," he whispered, eyes wide in an imitation of someone telling a mystery story, "that was the sound of me Disapparating."

Laughing, she slid her fingers into his hair and pulled him back down. How was she supposed to resist and let him go when he was being this adorable? She kissed him deeply and he sighed, undoing any resolve she might have had about letting him go without a fight. Not that he seemed that committed to the idea of actually leaving anyway. "What are you doing now?" she asked, between kisses.

"I'm in bed," he muttered, taking her face in his hands, "thinking about doing this with you."

"Are you having fun?"

"Mmm," he murmured, sending little shivers through her lips as he hummed his reply against them.

It was another half an hour before he managed to drag himself away.

The next day, Tonks found herself sitting in the Order meeting, listening to a seemingly endless report from Emmeline Vance. Although originally Tonks had given her her rapt attention, after the first hour of Emmeline's meticulous and rather dry report, her mind had started to drift and her stomach rumble. She idly wondered if she might be able to get Remus alone later and perhaps pick up where they'd left off the previous night. She smiled at the thought.

Her stomach gave such a loud growl that Emmeline stopped and frowned at her, and several people turned to look, including Remus who offered her the briefest of smirks before turning back to Emmeline, his cheek twitching wildly to suppress his amusement. Tonks shifted in her seat, and smiled apologetically.

Remembering that she'd anticipated such a situation and stopped at a Muggle shop near the Ministry, she delved into her pocket to retrieve a lollipop, unwrapped it as quietly as she could and popped it in her mouth.

Eventually the meeting drew to a close, and people started to move away from the table, some going home or off on the missions they'd been assigned, others lingering, talking in small clusters. Her eyes searched for Remus and found him having been cornered by Molly.

"Tonks?"

Tonks looked up and found Bill smiling at her. "Wotcher," she said, resting against the table and taking her lollipop out of her mouth to see how much she had left.

"Are you on tonight?" he said.

"Nope," she said, and Bill smiled.

He shifted from foot to foot, looking down at her with something that looked a bit like expectation, or maybe hopefulness, in his eyes. "Don't suppose you want to swap, do you?"

"Swap?"

"Tonight for the day after tomorrow?"

She frowned at him in incomprehension, since the shifts had only just been assigned. "If you couldn't do tonight, why didn't you just tell Mad-Eye?"

"Because he doesn't think me having made plans with a girl is a good enough excuse," Bill said. "But he did say if I could find someone willing to step in…." Bill raised his eyebrows at her hopefully. "I wouldn't normally ask, but, well I've already cancelled on her a couple of times because of the Order…."

Tonks rolled her lollipop thoughtfully across her tongue, but Bill was looking at her with such obviously imploring eyes she knew she wouldn't be able to resist. "All right," she said. "But you'll owe me."

"Thanks."

"Who's the lucky lady, then?" she said, grinning.

"No-one you know," Bill returned, smiling.

He thanked her again and then left, with a distinct spring in his step, and she was so busy sniggering and wondering who Bill's mystery girlfriend was that she didn't notice Remus until he was right next to her. He bumped her lightly with his arm to get her attention, and she turned towards him, insides fluttering. "Molly cornered you, I see," she said.

"Hmm," he said, and as her eyes roved his face, she noticed something unusual. He didn't seem nearly as composed as normal – he looked a little distracted, his eyes not seeming able to settle on any one thing. She indicated his face with a vague wave before returning her lollipop to her mouth.

"What did she do to you?"

Remus swallowed. "Nothing," he said, but it wasn't very convincing, and then he blushed, which sealed the idea in her mind that there was definitely something strange going on behind his soft grey eyes. He indicated the door with a vague nod of his head. "I didn't know you were friends with Bill," he said. She could tell that he was trying to sound casual, although he failed to pull it off quite spectacularly, and she was left with the impression that either he was trying to change the subject, or he was just a little bit jealous.

She smirked at the thought and concentrated on her lollipop for a moment, thinking that she might make him sweat, just a little bit. The idea that he liked her enough to be bothered about her talking to other men sent little thrills through her. His face fell just a little bit as he waited for her answer, and she couldn't bare to make him suffer any longer. "I'm not really," she said. "He put me in detention quite a few times, if that counts."

"Ah, I see."

Remus looked relieved, she thought, and he rested against the table next to her. "He just wanted someone to take his shift tonight so he could go out with a girl."

"Oh," Remus said, his voice lilting with amusement. "I wonder if she can expect some of Molly's poetry?"

She raised an eyebrow at him and they both chuckled. "You don't mind me swapping, do you?" she said.

"No," he said. "Why would I?"

"Just – we were both free tonight."

"Yes," he said, lowering his voice and pressing his shoulder against hers, "but now we're both free on Thursday, and we won't have to spend half of our evening listening to Emmeline's scintillating reports."

She smiled at him, thinking that he had a point. "Delightful as your company would doubtless have been," he said, "I daresay I can amuse myself this evening. Any idea what you'd like to do on Thursday?"

"I don't know," she said. "Isn't tomorrow the – "

She stopped herself. She didn't want him to think that she'd been keeping track of the lunar cycle, although she wasn't entirely sure why. "I'm not going to faint if you say the words 'full moon'," he said, and although he'd lowered his voice, his tone was kind and he smiled at her reassuringly.

"No – just – if you'll be tired or not in the mood…. Maybe I can find someone to swap with me and we can do something tonight instead."

She shot a cursory glance around the kitchen, but only Snape seemed a likely candidate, and she was fairly certain that if he did anyone a favour the world would stop spinning. Remus rested his hand on her arm. "I'll be fine," he said.

"Really?" she said, and he nodded, smiling. "Ok," she said, but she wasn't sure she entirely believed him. She thought that a quiet night in might be the best option, and if last night was anything to go on, there would definitely be sofa-related fringe benefits. "Why don't you just come over to mine?"

"Do you promise not to cook?" he said, and she laughed.

"Tonks," Moody growled. She started, and it wasn't just because of Moody's gruff, abrupt tone. For some reason whenever she was with Remus, it always came as a surprise that other people existed. "Stop – er – flirting – " Moody looked a little disconcerted by what he was saying, and she tried desperately not to laugh at the thought that he'd battled the world's most fearsome Dark wizards, and yet found flirting uncomfortable. " – or fraternising – or – er – whatever it is you're doing," he muttered. "Time to ship out."

She nodded and, as Moody stomped out of the kitchen, turned back to Remus. He gave her arm a brief squeeze. "Take care," he said softly, and she smiled at him.

"You too," she said.

She joined Moody in the hall, and they made their way out into the cold night air, wands at the ready. "So you and Lupin," Moody said gruffly, his magical eye roving the street for potential hazards. "Not just a figment of Black's imagination, eh?"

"You noticed?" she said.

"Not much gets past me, girl."

"No," she said.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing, wondering what trouble she might be in if Moody ever added a sarcasm detector to his collection of magical objects.

They made their way down the road to the small park, which was much more secluded and better for Apparation. "Could do a lot worse," Moody said stiffly.

"Him or me?"

"Both of you. Just make sure you keep your mind on the job. I've known better witches than you lose their lives for the sake of their hearts."

He nodded quickly to indicate that that was all he really wanted to say on the matter, and then Disapparated. She allowed herself a small smile at his concern, and then followed suit.

The next day, Tonks finished and filed all her paperwork at record speeds, and almost made it out of work on time. She intended to try and make it to Grimmauld to see Remus before moonrise, but Scrimgeour had different ideas, cornering her as she approached the lift. Her heart sank as he asked endless questions about an investigation she'd been part of into a Death Eater sighting that had turned out to just be a Muggle with slightly gothic clothing, and by the time she arrived at Grimmauld, the moon was already high in the sky. She'd never really given the moon any thought before – not significant thought, but looking at it now with fresh eyes, she couldn't help but think it a little sinister as it hung there, casting its eerie, silvery glow on the skittering clouds that passed it.

She shot a last look at the moon, and then went inside, thinking that Molly might have left something more palatable than anything she could cook or had in her cupboards at home. She headed for the kitchen, and as she opened the door she found Sirius trying to wrestle the legs off a large cooked chicken. "Cousin!" he said, beaming.

Tonks tried to cover her surprise as best she could, although she suspected that her eyes were still a little too wide, and with good reason. The last couple of times she'd been over he'd done little more than grunt at her in greeting, and his sudden cheerfulness was a little disconcerting – as was whatever it was that he was trying to do to the chicken.

Noticing her frowning at him, Sirius indicated the chicken with a wave of his hand and said "I was just getting old Moony some dinner."

"Oh," she said puzzled. "I thought tonight was the – "

"It is," Sirius said. For a moment he echoed her puzzled expression, and then his face softened in realisation. "He doesn't like to eat before he transforms," he said, with rather uncharacteristic warmth in his voice as he explained. "I think it's easier on an empty stomach. After he's – you know – settled, though, sometimes he's peckish."

"Oh."

Sirius finally managed to separate a leg and made a noise of vague triumph, and she watched him begin his battle with the second, wondering if she should help or at least suggest to him that he use a slicing spell.

She glanced at the ceiling, wondering where Remus was – if he was in his own room or one of the other vacant ones. It was odd, really, to think that somewhere above her, Remus was pacing about with paws instead of hands and feet, and fur, and yellow wolfy eyes where there was normally a kind or gently amused glint. She'd known – pretty much since she'd met him – that he was a werewolf, but until now it had been something of an abstract concept: _Remus is a werewolf_, a distant idea, barely conceivable, not something that she could actually feel was real, even though she knew it was.

But now, Remus was upstairs somewhere, a wolf. She wondered what he was doing, what he looked like, if he'd have the same amused glint, the same kindness in his eyes in spite of everything else being different.

It occurred to her quite sharply that there was so much she didn't know about that part of his life, even though this was the third full moon since they'd started going out together. But it wasn't as if they'd had a lot of time together – in theory, two months was a long time, in reality they'd only been out – or stayed in together – a handful of times, and what time they had had, they'd tacitly agreed not to let become subsumed by serious issues, since they were dealing with serious issues all the time when they were apart.

"Can I – " she started.

She stopped herself and then frowned. Sirius raised an eyebrow at her, and she smiled back. She'd been about to ask if she could talk to him about Remus, take advantage of her cousin's good mood, but it wasn't as if she and Sirius had had a great many serious conversations, aside from the semi-serious one they'd had about her and Remus. It felt a bit strange to be even thinking about talking to him about something which felt personal.

But then, she reasoned, he had known Remus for a long time, and besides that, it wasn't as if she had a lot of other options when it came to people she could talk to about this. She doubted her friends would understand, and she could hardly talk to anyone at work about it. And her family were out of the question. She could just imagine her mother's face if she showed up and said 'hey mum, the good news is I've got a boyfriend. The bad news is, he's a werewolf. What do you think I should do about it?'. She'd probably faint on the spot.

No, she thought, all in all, Sirius was the best option. She took a deep breath.

"Can I talk to you about Remus?" she said, before she changed her mind.

"Whatever it was, he didn't do it," Sirius said, and she laughed.

"Nothing like that," she said. "Just – "

Sirius straightened up and looked at her as if he'd just realised something. "Ah," he said. "It's the werewolf thing, isn't it?"

She smiled a little shyly, and then nodded. Sirius stopped wrestling with the chicken, wiped his hands on his jeans, pulled out a chair for her and indicated that she should sit, before sinking into a chair of his own.

Now they were sitting here, the chicken eying them with as much contempt as it could from its quite undignified prone position, she felt that maybe she'd given the situation gravitas that it didn't really deserve – after all, it didn't matter to her that Remus was a werewolf, she was just a bit unsure about what to do about it. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable by saying or doing something stupid, that was all.

"I just – I don't really know how to handle it," she said. "We've talked about it a bit, but I never know if I'm saying the right thing."

"I'm not sure there's any wrong thing," Sirius said. "Just the fact that you're talking to him and not running away screaming is a start."

She smiled. She hadn't thought of it like that. She clasped her hands together and rested them on the table, leaning forward and turning towards Sirius to better read his reactions. "I want to let him know that I'm not bothered," she said, "but half of me thinks bringing it up to say I'm not bothered is like saying that I am bothered really, because if I really wasn't, why would I be mentioning it at all?" Sirius let out a soft, amused snort. "But there's things I think I should probably know too," she said, adding a shrug, "so I don't say or do something stupid, because you know me – if there's somewhere wrong to put my foot, I'll find it."

He considered her for a moment, and then offered her a rather sage nod. "Now," he said, "far be it from me to offer anyone even remotely grown-up sounding advice – " Sirius leant in towards her and fixed her with a look of what she hoped was playful menace, for a second looking every inch the escaped murderer. " – and if you breathe a word of this to anyone I _will_ hex you – but, you should talk to him," he said. "He doesn't mind talking about it nearly as much as people think he will."

"No?"

"I think he'd rather people asked him about it than go around believing all the daft folklore," he said, with a dismissive wave. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you had questions."

"Right."

Sirius sat back in his chair, regarding her thoughtfully. "You don't seem very convinced," he said.

"No, just – I don't want him to think that I see him as a werewolf – I mean _only_ as a werewolf."

"I think he knows you don't," he said, and she smiled at him, grateful for his quiet reassurance. "I know it probably seems a bit weird and new and stuff now," he said, "but you'll get used to it."

"I know," she said. "I just don't want to accidentally say or do the wrong thing until then."

"He's a forgiving sort," Sirius said, "if you do manage to offend him or say something daft, he won't hold it against you."

"Still…."

Sirius nodded and leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand. "You're having him over for dinner tomorrow, aren't you?" he asked.

"Hmm."

"Well, if you're looking for something more along the lines of a practical suggestion, it might not be a bad idea if you could be affectionate," he said.

"Affectionate?" she said, incredulously. "I thought the very last thing you wanted was for us to be was _affectionate_. I did hear about a little talk you had featuring the words 'filthy lecherous werewolf paws', you know."

Sirius laughed. "I didn't mean that you should pin him to the floor the instant you see him and stick your tongue down his throat. Although I'm sure he wouldn't complain," he added ruefully. "Just – " He paused and sighed, eyes flickering about the room as he sought a suitable explanation. "After the full moon," he said, "I think he needs to be reassured that he's human, and – well – he needs to know that what he's just been through hasn't changed the way the people he's close to see him." Sirius glanced at the ceiling briefly and then shook his head. "And it's no good just saying it to him, of course, because he never listens. Stubborn bastard," he said, returning his eyes to hers, " – but if you could show him – hug him or something to prove that you're not afraid to touch him – I don't think that would go amiss."

She supposed that made a lot of sense. "Ok," she said. "Anything else?" Sirius rested heavily on his hand and let out a long sigh.

"The thing about Remus," he said, "is that he's like an onion." She didn't even try to hide the puzzled frown she felt form on her features.

"You mean he's got a lot of layers?" she said tentatively, wondering where exactly Sirius was going with this.

"No," Sirius said. "I mean he'll make you cry."

She let out a soft snort of laughter and Sirius rolled his eyes at her. "Of course I meant that he's got a lot of layers. Although he told you what he did to Heather Noonan, didn't he – ?" She smiled her answer. " – so the thing with the crying might not be entirely off the cards."

"What about the layers?" she prompted. Sirius took a deep breath, his brow creasing in thought for a moment.

"Who he is," he said, "being a werewolf, it's a big part of him, but how he deals with it is bigger. He's got a lot of defences, and most of them are very cleverly constructed and not at all obvious. He'll give you the impression of having been entirely open and honest, when really, he's been nothing of the sort. When he trusts you enough, he'll show you how much he hides."

Tonks frowned. "Doesn't he trust me already?"

"I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing," Sirius said, with a wry smile. "He thinks he needs to protect people from worrying about him, worrying about this."

Tonks raised her eyebrows at him in question, and Sirius swallowed and looked away. "Before we could be with him," he said, "before we learned to be Animagi, if he'd had a bad one and he wasn't in his bed when we woke up, we used to go and see him in the Hospital Wing, even though he always made us promise beforehand that we wouldn't."

"He made you promise not to go and see him?" she said, wide-eyed with surprise. "Why?"

"He _said_ he didn't want us to get into trouble on his account," Sirius said. His lips pursed into a grim, faint smile. "I've seen him so weak he could've barely crawled," he said, "and he must have been in so much pain that any normal man, let alone boy, would've been bawling his eyes out. But he never let on. He'd smile and insist that he was fine, and he'd take a deep breath, sit up straight and say something to make us feel better about seeing him like that."

She couldn't help it. She felt sadness rising in her throat as she thought of him like that, thinking that he had to be strong and stoic, even when people were queuing up just to see if he was all right, to tell him that he didn't have to be. The crack in Sirius' voice told her that he felt exactly the same. "But why?" she said quietly, desperately trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Because he really is a stubborn bastard. He won't give in to it," he said. "And to him, I think, admitting that it hurts, that he worries about it, that it's not over when the moon goes down is like saying it's stronger than he is, and he just won't have that."

For a second his words hung in the air between them, seeming to suck whatever life there was in the grimy kitchen away. He gave her another grim, faint smile that slowly developed into something more warm and fond as he remembered. "Sometimes he'd even give us a lecture about us missing breakfast to come and see him or the fact that we were going to be late," Sirius said, sniffing with amusement that she couldn't help thinking a little forced. "Sometimes he'd tell us that we'd better take decent notes for him this time instead of the usual illegible scrawl we presented him with at lunchtime. We always knew then that he really _was_ feeling all right. Or, at least, that it was important that he thought that we thought he was all right."

She smiled, thinking that that was oh-so-very Remus. "That's either annoyingly bloody-minded, or very brave," she said, and Sirius laughed.

"It's probably a bit of both, to be honest," he said. He dropped his hands into his lap and rocked back in his chair. "I remember when we got Sorted," he said, and the atmosphere in the kitchen seemed a little brighter as his face lit up. "I was already at the Gryffindor table – and still a bit shocked about it, to be honest, because even though I desperately didn't want to be in Slytherin, I didn't think for a moment I'd pull it off. Anyway, I remember him stepping up and the hat wasn't even on his head when it decided – and I looked at him, and he was so scrawny and sickly-looking, I just sat there wondering why it'd put him with us. I felt a right git when I figured out where he went every month and all the crap he'd put up with."

Tonks laughed, wondering if Remus was the only person who had ever made Sirius Black feel like a right git. "What else can you tell me about him?" she said, smiling. Sirius raised his eyebrows at her.

"Plenty of things he'd strangle me in my sleep for," he said.

"That never normally stops you."

"No," Sirius said. "But apart from the strangling he's had thirteen years to swat up on new hexes."

"That one with the fleas was a good one," she said, chuckling at the memory.

"It was," he said, grinning slightly, before leaning in conspiratorially, "but I didn't say it."

She nodded to bind their agreement, wondering why she'd ever worried about talking to Sirius about this. They weren't close – thirteen years suspicion and separation had seen to that, but since she joined the Order he'd always made an effort to look out for her, in his own, quite infuriating, way. And she was glad to have gotten some of her feelings of sadness about Remus' condition and how unfair it was out of the way in front of Sirius rather than Remus, because she was sure that the last thing he needed to see in her eyes when they _did_ talk about it was pity.

"You know it's his birthday next week?" Sirius said, startling her out of her thoughts as he resumed his battle to separate the poor chicken from its remaining leg.

"No," she said. "He didn't say anything."

"Typical," he said rolling his eyes. "I think sometimes he thinks that caring for him is an inconvenience."

She chuckled, thinking that they'd just have to make an effort to show him that they thought otherwise. "Any ideas about what we should do?" she said.

"Well," Sirius said, "I'd suggest we embarrass the hell out of him with some garish, over the top and very public display of affection, but since I'm stuck here, I suppose we'll have to make do with buying him a couple of presents and getting him good and drunk."

"Ok," she said, laughing. "That sounds good to me. I'll come over when he's on duty and we can plot."

"And you can tell me how your talk with him went," Sirius said, finally separating the leg from its owner. "As long as you promise to leave out all the sordid details about how you proved to him you don't mind. There are some images a man with too much time on his hands doesn't need."

Sirius got to his feet and returned the rest of the chicken to the pantry. "Anyway," he said, "he'll probably be wondering where I've got to. Do you want to come up and say hello?" Tonks felt her eyes widen in surprise. That was the very last thing she'd expected Sirius to say. "It's all right," he said, misinterpreting her response. "He's potioned up to the eyeballs. He's perfectly safe."

"Oh, it's not that," she said quickly. Sirius' eyebrows lowered and he looked at her inquisitively. "Wouldn't it be a bit rude to just go up there without him saying it was Ok?" she said. "He might want to keep it private for now or something. I should at least give him the choice, shouldn't I?"

Sirius considered her, scratching his stubbly chin. "You're probably right," he said, shrugging. "When did you get to be so wise and worldly? I suppose I was in prison and missed it," he added, a note of bitterness in his voice. "Could you get the door and then hand me the chicken?" he said. "Paws and handles really don't mix."

"Ok," she said, getting to her feet.

She looked at Sirius for a moment, wishing she'd known him when he was younger, before his eyes got that haunted look that they had now, even when he smiled, as if the amusement didn't go quite as far as his soul. He raised his eyebrows at her in question at her inaction, and on impulse she threw her arms around him and hugged him, pinning his arms to his sides. He seemed a little startled for a moment, and then hugged her back, extracting his arms from underneath hers so he could do it properly. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem," Sirius said. "Any time. It's nice to be useful, for a change."

She gave him an extra squeeze and then he patted her on the back and let go. "I think you're good for him," Sirius said quietly.

"How come?"

"Well you won't take any of his crap."

"How do you know that?"

"You're a Black, aren't you?" Sirius said. "If there's one thing you can rely on Black women for it's to string you up by the balls the instant you piss them off."

She laughed, and Sirius met her eye and smiled, before he disappeared into the form of a large, shaggy black dog. He looked at her expectantly, and she held out the chicken legs for him. He clutched them gently in his mouth, and she crossed the room and opened the door for him, watching his wagging tail retreat down the corridor and up the stairs.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and anyone who fancies reviewing this one gets the option to be manhandled by a Remus of their choice. And if anyone fancies being manhandled by Sirius instead (since he's being all sweet and considerate at the moment), feel free. Form an orderly queue, no shoving at the back ;).**


	12. The Werewolf In The Room

Tonks had been thinking about Remus all day.

Which, granted, wasn't unusual – these days he was her mind's natural default setting. If it didn't have anything better to do, or even sometimes when it did, there he was, ready to be thought about, and if he wasn't actively on her mind, he was always there in the background somewhere, a vague, Remus hum, like a spell cast days ago that lingered in the air. Occasionally he popped up unexpectedly too, inspired by a song she heard on the WWN, or something she saw that she made a note to tell him, or when she spotted someone with his colour hair or a jumper that was vaguely similar to one of his.

But today was different, because her thoughts about him weren't vague and backgroundy, but frighteningly specific, and, eventually, they'd managed to nudge their way into every thought she had. And the panic those thoughts inspired was all consuming.

What on earth was she going to get him for his birthday?

She fidgeted with the cushion in her lap, wishing she hadn't had so much time between work and him arriving to sit and stew about it. Just her luck, she thought. The one night she had something she needed her mind taking off was the one night Kingsley didn't need any help with his paperwork, Scrimgeour didn't want her to stay behind for a pointless de-brief, and there were no last-minute emergencies to eat into her getting ready time.

And consequently, she'd come home, got changed into her favourite black T shirt and lime green jumper, gone through a range of different hair colours before deciding she liked the red she'd been wearing all day, and then sat and racked her brain for books Remus might have mentioned wanting to read, foodstuffs he might have expressed a particular interest in sampling, or knick-knacks he'd lamented a lack of – in short, for hints she was perfectly sure he hadn't dropped. Her brow furrowed at the thought.

There was a knock on the door, and Tonks tossed the cushion back onto the sofa and got up to answer it, frowning a little because Remus wasn't due to arrive for twenty minutes and it wasn't like him to do anything as rude and presumptuous as be early.

She opened the door to find Molly beaming at her and gripping a large, square, glass dish that was brimming with what looked like melted cheese, under which a lasagne probably lurked. Tonks relaxed her grip on her wand. "Wotcher," she said.

"Hello dear," Molly said, peering over Tonks' shoulder and into the lounge. "Not interrupting anything..?"

"No," Tonks said, smiling to herself and wondering if Molly half-expected to see Remus' feet poking out from underneath the curtains, or the top of his head cresting the back of the sofa, or him half-naked in the middle of the room, scrabbling for his clothes.

She cleared her throat, partly to draw Molly's attention back to her instead of the room she was still scanning for trysting werewolves, and partly to clear _her _mind of the images of a half-naked, trysting werewolf that she'd somehow conjured and probably shouldn't give too much thought to in company for fear she might drool on her shoes. "Well I won't keep you," Molly said distractedly, still craning her neck to see into the room, and probably under the impression she was doing it surreptitiously. A disappointed crease appeared briefly on her forehead as she came to the conclusion that the room was empty, and then she shook her head slightly and met Tonks' eye, the corners of hers crinkling as she smiled. "I just brought you this," she said, holding out the dish, "to thank you for swapping shifts with Bill. It really was _very_ kind of you."

"No problem," Tonks said, taking the dish anyway. She knew better than to refuse any offer of food Molly made, and if she was honest, she was grateful that she and Remus wouldn't have to fend for themselves, since they weren't very good at it. "But thanks. This looks fantastic. I hope you didn't go to too much trouble."

"No trouble at all," she said. "I made far too much for me and Arthur and it'd be a shame to waste it."

Tonks suppressed a smile, remembering how, over the summer, Molly had always offered Remus second helpings of things – normally desserts, under the pretence that it would be a shame to waste it, presumably forgetting that Remus knew of the existence of chilling and preservation charms. Remus, of course, would always accept and agree, even though they both knew it was just because Molly thought he was too thin and it was nothing to do with things going to waste at all. The fact that they both kept up the pretence, however, had endeared them to her no end when she'd first joined the Order. "Do you want to come in for a minute?" she said.

"Are you sure, dear?" Molly said, and Tonks nodded and ushered her over the threshold. "What a lovely room," she said, casting her eyes about the place as if she hadn't just spent minutes peering into it, "nice to see a splash of colour." Tonks grinned before taking the lasagne into the kitchen and setting it on the side.

"Fancy a cuppa?" she called into the lounge.

"I'd love one."

Tonks busied herself with mugs, tea bags and sugar, and soon enough she was gesturing for Molly to have a seat and issuing her with a steaming mug. "You know, there's more than enough for two – " Molly said, taking a sip of her tea. Tonks eyed the mug with a frown, thinking that she'd never thought it abnormally large, before she glanced up and saw Molly's eyes darting towards the kitchen, and decided that she was probably referring to the lasagne. " – should there be anyone you'd like to have over for dinner." Molly's eyes took on a hopeful gleam as she continued: "And they do say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"I'm buggered then," Tonks said, before she could hold the thought in.

She looked up warily to see Molly's reaction, wondering if she was in for the kind of scolding for swearing she'd seen Molly give the twins and Ron – or possibly a soap charm to wash her mouth out – but Molly seemed prepared to let it slide, since there weren't impressionable minds around to be influenced. "Nonsense," she said, waving the thought away. "You could always learn if you wanted to."

"Unless someone comes up with a cookery book for people who make things explode," Tonks said, "I think I'm better off out of it for everybody's sake."

She took a sip of her tea and cringed at the memory of Remus with spaghetti in his hair. At least Molly had saved her from a repeat performance of that. "So is there..?" Molly said into her mug, with as much nonchalance as any Weasley was able to pull off. Tonks frowned, perplexed by whatever Molly was alluding to, wondering if she'd missed something.

"Is there what?" she said, taking a sip of her tea.

"Someone you'd like to have over for dinner," Molly said, fidgeting with the chipped red mug in her hands. "Someone from the Order, maybe..?"

Tonks battled a grin. So that was it. She couldn't resist it. "Well Dung's been fishing for an invite – "

"Anyone else?" Molly said insistently. "Anyone more – " she wrinkled her nose as if the very thought of Mundungus Fletcher had evoked the smell of tobacco " – suitable?"

Tonks furrowed her brow in mock-thought, but before she could come up with a suitably single alternative Order member, Molly jumped in. "Remus is free this evening," she offered, eyebrows high and her eyes sparkling as she watched Tonks intently. "And he does like lasagne – I always save him a second helping."

"Does he?" Tonks said off-handedly, trying to appear disinterested.

Molly's brow creased slightly, and Tonks wondered if she hadn't been a bit too convincingly disinterested. "I did think that you and he – I mean you are – you seem to be – " Tonks raised an eyebrow, barely suppressing a smile. " – courting," Molly said, seeming relieved to have gotten the word out.

"I don't know about that," Tonks said, unable to resist a mischievous grin, "but he is coming over for dinner, so it's a good job you brought that lasagne. I was going to offer to take him to the pub and shout him a bag of pork scratchings."

"Really?" Molly said, looking as if she about to stand up and break into a round of applause – Tonks suspected about the fact that they were having dinner together, not about her pork scratchings plan that was now, gladly, thwarted.

"Yeah."

Molly offered her a rather knowing smile. "He thinks very highly of you, you know," she said.

"I think very highly of him too," Tonks said quietly, allowing her mind to wander, just a little way, into what Remus might have said about her territory.

"How are things..?" Molly said. Tonks couldn't resist a blush at the thought.

"Fine," she said, into her mug. "Better than fine."

As she uttered the words she realised how nice it was to have someone to talk to about this, however vaguely, and although she never would have imagined having such a conversation with Molly, it didn't feel anywhere near as weird as she thought it might.

And it gave her an idea. If anyone could help her come up with a thoughtful gift for Remus, it was Molly – surely she had acres of experience with buying birthday presents for men of all ages? "Actually," she said, "I was just wondering what to get him for his birthday."

"It's his birthday?"

"Next week."

"I shall have to get a card…." Molly murmured. "Any ideas, dear?"

"I was thinking a book, maybe?" she said. "You know, something he'd keep for a long time. But he's got so many already…."

"You know, I hear the new Izolda Mackenzie novel is excellent," she said. "It got five wands in the _Witch Weekly_ review."

Tonks suppressed a snigger at the idea of Remus being on the edge of his seat for the new Izolda Mackenzie novel, desperate to know the romantic fate of one of her fantastically unrealistic and gloomy heroines, who always fell for the least suitable wizard at the worst possible time, with spectacularly disastrous consequences. Still, it was a thought…. "Hmm," she said.

"Not quite what you had in mind?"

"Not quite," she said, smiling and hoping Molly wouldn't take offence.

"They're very accommodating in Flourish and Blotts," she said. "I'm sure they'd help you find something if you asked. They're always very good about getting Arthur second-hand copies of those Muggle man-rual things he likes."

"Maybe I'll pop in this weekend," Tonks said, deciding not to tell Molly she'd said 'manual' wrong.

"I'm sure he'll love whatever you get him," Molly said, smiling reassuringly.

"I know," she said. "I just – I want to get him something special, something he'll remember. I mean – he's done some really nice things for me, and I'd just like to do something nice for him for a change. He hasn't – I mean he hasn't said anything to you, has he? Anything about something he really wants?"

Molly shook her head, smiling rather knowingly. "All he ever talks about is you, dear," she said kindly. Tonks' insides danced.

"Oh," she said, feeling a blush creep up from her pounding heart. Molly's face lit up.

"I've got just the thing," she said. "You don't have to, but – well it might be just what you need if you can't come up with anything else. I'll send it with Arthur tomorrow."

Tonks' mind boggled at what it might be, conjuring images of large, hand-knitted jumpers with broomsticks on, but before she had time to ask for details, Molly continued. "And I've got a wonderful recipe for chocolate cake," she said, "if you'd like it."

"Any blowing things up in it?" Tonks muttered into her tea. Molly gave her a vaguely amused look of reproach, and patted her lightly on the knee.

"It's very easy," she said. "And I could always – " She frowned a little as if she wasn't quite sure whether or not to continue, but Tonks gave her an encouraging nod and her hesitation dissolved. "I'm sure you'd be able to do it, but – well, I could make one too – as a reserve. Just in case."

"That'd be great," she said. "I'd appreciate it. And I think Remus would too – you know, not having to eat one of my not-entirely-cooked cakes on his birthday." She couldn't help thinking that his birthday was the one day a year when he should be saved the effort of being so polite about everything, and Molly's suggestion had given her a rather good idea…. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

Molly smiled her answer. "It'd be my pleasure," she said. "After everything he did for us at Christmas it's the least I can do." She smiled warmly at the thought and then drained her mug. "I'm glad things are working out."

"Me too."

There was an easy, contemplative pause in their conversation, during which Molly took both mugs and, seemingly entirely absentmindedly, sent them to the kitchen, where they rinsed themselves out, dried themselves and nestled neatly back in the cupboard, all in the time it would have taken Tonks to tentatively send them towards the sink and wince expectantly for the sound of them smashing.

"Tell me, dear," Molly said, "how did Remus get around to telling you how he felt? He was always so dreadfully nervous about it."

Tonks let out a soft chuckle, wondering if she should confess that Remus had told her all about Molly's poetry plans – or even lie and say that he'd won her over with a clever limerick or some epic romantic sonnet. "He just asked me if I'd like to go out with him," she said, deciding against it.

"Out of the blue?" Molly said, eyes widening, impressed, she supposed at Remus' sudden apparent bravado, and reminding Tonks that the Remus she knew wasn't the same one, necessarily, that other people got to see.

"Not entirely," Tonks said, unable to resist the urge to give in to another soft chuckle. "And then he took me out, and we had a lovely time."

"I'm sure you did." Molly smiled. "I'd best get out of your way," she said, gesturing vaguely at the room and then getting to her feet. "Arthur should be home any minute. Give Remus my best."

"I will."

Tonks showed Molly out, immensely grateful for the distraction she'd provided if not her Izolda Mackenzie idea, and five minutes later, there was another knock at the door, and this time, when she opened it, Remus was on the other side, smiling.

Her eyes took a quick pass over his face. He looked a little tired, maybe a bit paler than usual, but his eyes sparkled as they met hers, and that was all the reassurance she needed that he was fine. She wasn't sure she'd ever expected him not to be; after all, he'd been dealing with full moons for years without her concern or interference.

But Merlin, it was good to see him.

"I brought dinner," he said, holding out a large bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and a bottle of wine. His face sported an adorable mischievous expression, and she laughed and pulled him inside by the arm of his coat.

They looked at each other for a moment, and she thought that somewhere in his eyes, amongst the mischief and the sparkle, there was just a glimmer of nervousness, a hopeful, tentative eagerness that she hadn't seen since the night he'd asked her out. Remembering what Sirius had said about him possibly wanting, or needing, to be reassured that she still felt exactly the same as she had before the full moon, she slid her arms around his waist and hugged him, revelling in his soft brown jumper beneath her cheek and inhaling his delectable scent, mingled with the crisp spring air that he'd brought in with him.

He made a vaguely startled noise, hesitating for just a moment before returning the gesture as best he could with both his hands full. He kissed the side of her face, and she sank a little further into him, squeezing him tighter, having not realised until now how glad she would be to see him. He chuckled lightly beneath her cheek and she smiled up at him, to be rewarded with a proper kiss that made every inch of her smile, the delightfulness of which was only slightly hampered by the wine bottle pressing into her back and the bag of beans knocking against her bottom as he wrapped his arms around her. "Hello," he said, as he pulled away, and she couldn't avoid giving in to the urge to grin at him.

"Wotcher," she said dreamily.

She gestured for him to hang up his coat and he did, before turning back and holding up the bag. "You do like these, don't you?"

"Hmm," she said. "But we can have them for dessert."

"You didn't – "

Before he could get out the word – which she supposed would inevitably have been 'cook' – she took his sleeve and dragged him over to the kitchen, presenting the lasagne to him with a flourish. "Ta da!"

His eyes widened as he took in the dish. "Did you go on a cookery course?" he said, setting the wine and the bag of beans down on the work surface and turning back to her with a look of awe, that she wasn't entirely sure was pretend, on his face.

"No," she said. "Molly brought it over to thank me for swapping shifts with Bill. She made a point of saying she'd made enough for two – the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and all that. Looks like enough for six to me," she said, frowning a little at the immense dish in her hands before setting it back on the work surface.

"Did you tell her?" Remus asked, as he leant on the doorframe, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and offering her a slightly mischievous smile. "Put her out of her misery?"

"Oh she knew," Tonks said. "Actually, Charlie used to say that she reads minds because she always seemed to know when one of them had been up to no good." Remus straightened up and his eyes flashed with panic.

"Oh dear Merlin I hope not," he said.

"Why?" she said, narrowing her eyes at him in suspicion. "What have you been thinking that you'd want to hide from Molly?"

"I think a better question might be, what have I been thinking that I _wouldn't_ want to hide from Molly?" he said.

"_Really?_" she said, leaning forward a little, one hand on her hip, desperately intrigued.

Remus swallowed and looked away, his eyes desperately roving the work surface. "So this lasagne, then," he said, changing the subject rather obviously as he enveloped the wine in a chilling charm. "What do you need to do to it?"

"I just need to warm it up," she said. Remus met her eye and smiled tentatively at her, giving her the impression that he was glad she hadn't questioned his abrupt change of topic. Which, of course, made her all the keener to file it for returning to later, maybe after she'd softened him up with a glass or two of wine.

"Do you want me to do – " he offered helpfully before she cut him off.

"I'm perfectly capable of performing a simple heating spell," she said, taking out her wand. Remus backed away towards the sink, cowering slightly as she raised it and pointed it at the dish. "What?" she said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"Nothing," he said, defensively raising his hands. "I was just remembering the lightness of touch you have with pasta."

She shot him a mock-glare, and he took out his wand and conjured a pink umbrella, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her towards him as he unfurled it over them both. "Just in case," he said, and she laughed, wondering how he could be such a gentleman and make fun of her at the same time. Not that she minded his teasing, or the way he was cradling her protectively against his chest, even though their foe was a rather less than deadly lasagne.

She decided to make the most of the opportunity, hooking her arm around his waist and bracing herself against him as she pointed her wand in the general direction of the dish and shot the spell at it. She closed her eyes at the last second and winced in expectation of the sound of exploding lasagne and cheese sauce raining from the ceiling that would surely follow. They cowered together for a moment before realising nothing adverse had happened.

"Did you hit it?" Remus said. This time Tonks shot him a real glare and dug him in the ribs for good measure.

"Did I hit it?" she asked incredulously, and he squirmed, laughing, away from her fingers. "I wouldn't be much of an Auror if I couldn't hit an inanimate object from two feet away."

Remus glanced at her apologetically, and Tonks waited until he'd turned to vanish his umbrella to go over to the dish and check.

When she'd assessed that the lasagne was well on the way to heating, she looked around for Remus, and found him in the lounge, running his finger along her CD shelf. "Whatcha doing?" she said, and he looked up.

"I thought I'd put some music on," he said. "Is that all right?"

"Of course it is," she said, leaning on the doorframe, her hands in her pockets. "What are you going for?"

"I thought I'd throw myself into the aural maelstrom of your record collection and pick something at random," he said. His finger stopped, and he removed the CD from its case without looking at it and placed it in the open CD player drawer. He smiled at her and hit play, and then jumped as the opening chords of a deafeningly bad heavy metal album she'd bought when she was fourteen just to annoy her parents blasted their way into the room. She couldn't resist a snigger.

Remus took a fortifying step back, staring at her CD player as if it had just insulted his mother. He turned it off again, and glanced over at her, eyes dancing with amusement. "Or you could choose," he said, and she laughed, covering her mouth with her fingers to hold in some proclamation about how adorable she thought he looked when he was startled as much as her laughter. He held out his hand to her and she stepped forward and took it, enjoying him winding her into his arms and nestling his chin on her shoulder. "What on earth was that?" he said as she settled her arms over his, squeezing them tighter into her.

"_That_ was the sound of teenage rebellion," she said, snuggling back into the warmth of his body and trying desperately not to sigh.

"Oh."

"Did you never..?"

"In my day rebellion was quieter," he said. "More secretive, underhand. Less – you know – shouty."

She laughed and then reluctantly moved one hand to trace along the shelf, trying to find something appropriate. Remus shifted so he could watch what she was choosing. "Could I put in a request for nothing too frightening?" he said and his words rumbled against her shoulder.

"Don't worry," she said. "If I'm going to scare you off I'd rather do it with something more exciting than a poor record choice."

"What might you do to scare me off?" he said, and she felt him turn to look at her.

"Well you almost let me cook," she said, and he chuckled breathily, "that normally does it."

"I've survived your cooking once," he said. "I came here tonight fully prepared to do so again."

Tonks' insides squirmed with embarrassment. "Actually," she said, "if Molly hadn't turned up, I was going to take you to the pub down the road for a bag of pork scratchings."

"Pork scratchings?" he said.

"Or crisps," she said. "You know, whichever you fancied."

"Could I have had Salt and Vinegar?"

"Of course. _And_ I might have bought you a pint."

"You do know how to show a man a good time," he said, his voice dancing with amusement. "I would have been delighted with either," he added, rather more sincerely, offering her stomach a reassuring squeeze and dropping a kiss onto her shoulder. "What else do you have up your sleeve to scare me off with, since that's evidently not going to pass muster?"

"Pig snout at an inappropriate moment usually does the trick," she said.

"So that's how you get rid of unwanted suitors, is it?" he said, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him lift an eyebrow at her.

"Hmm."

"What if I didn't mind the pig snout?"

"Then," she said, "I suppose I'd just have to fall back on some of my more inventive hexes."

She selected _Grace _from the shelf and put it on, smiling up at Remus over her shoulder and thinking that her wanting to get rid of him was about as likely as Moody taking a laissez-faire attitude to vigilance. The opening notes crept into the room and swirled around them. "How's that?" she said.

"Much better," he said, moving her gently from side to side in a quite close approximation of dancing, which, fortunately, didn't actually require either of them to move their feet, which seemed like a reasonable precaution, given their previous attempt. "Not at all frightening."

She leant against him and wondered if she should ask about the moon – but she wasn't entirely sure how to phrase the question. 'How was the moon?' just sounded too odd…and really, she wasn't sure she wanted to ruin the moment by dragging something like full moons into it. "How was your day?" Remus murmured, tightening his grip around her slightly.

"Pretty boring," she said. "Yours?"

"Same," he said, and she thought that 'pretty boring' probably answered her unuttered question without any of the possible angst that would have resulted from her having actually asked it. "That's why I bought the beans. Liven things up a bit."

She turned in his arms, sliding her hands over his shoulders and curling her fingers into his hair. "I wouldn't have thought you were an Every Flavour Bean kind of man," she said, her eyes flickering to watch her fingers in his hair.

"No?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her, his fingers leaving the faintest ghost of an impression on her hips as they moved lower and settled there. "Can you not see the slight element of danger appealing to my Marauder tendencies?"

"Is that what it is?"

Remus raised a single eyebrow higher. "Most Marauders wouldn't be caught dead with boring, non-adventurous sweets."

"Most?"

"Hmm," he said, inching her closer and gazing down at her. "You know Sirius hates them."

"How come?"

"Peter was barely ever without a bag in our first few years at school, and Sirius had the most appalling luck with them – all the nastiest flavours – soap, tripe, dust. He swears he had an earthworm-flavoured one once, although how he knew is anyone's guess. Then, he chanced upon one of the infamous vomit-flavoured ones, and since then he's refused to touch them – I've seen him recoil from just the briefest mention. I actually think they might be his boggart."

She laughed. "Big, bad, Sirius Black afraid of Every Flavour Beans. Remind me to take the mick about it the next time I see him," she said, before smiling at him teasingly and lowering her voice to her best flirtatious tone. "But you have no such qualms?"

"I think they can sense fear," he said narrowing his eyes slightly conspiratorially. "I think they turn into something nasty if they sense your hesitation. Consequently I've had no such trouble, because when it comes to confectionary, I'm very brave." His dramatic, mock-serious tone was only slightly ruined by him grinning, but regardless of whether she was impressed by his fearlessness in the face of a risk with every mouthful or not, he slowly dipped his head to hers.

She threaded her fingers into his hair and touched her lips to his. She sank into a delicious slow kiss, and as Remus' lips wandered over hers, sending tingles from her lips to everywhere else, she wondered if anything could be more perfect. And then he gently pressed her closer and his fingers wandered up her spine to weave their way into her hair, leaving a trail of undeniable sparks in their wake, and she knew the answer. Nothing was more perfect than that.

Just as a meddlesome thought about what might happen to a lasagne left indefinitely under a warming charm elbowed its way into her mind, Remus pulled away. "We should probably – " he indicated the kitchen with a jerk of his head.

"Hmm," she murmured. "I was just thinking the same thing."

Tonks managed to serve the lasagne without incident, and they took a plate each and settled on the floor in front of the fire with their backs against the sofa. Remus summoned the wine and a couple of glasses, setting them on the floor between them. "More stuff liberated from Grimmauld?" she said as he poured her a glass and handed it to her.

"No," he said. "I bought it at that Muggle shop on the corner. It was cheap, but it's got a deep notch in the bottom, so it should be all right."

She frowned in incomprehension. "What?" she said through a mouthful of lasagne.

"Oh," he said, laughing softly to himself, presumably at the look on her face. "It's a trick my father taught me. When you're buying Muggle wine, you want to see how far into the bottom of the bottle you can get your thumb. A deep notch means they'd serve it in restaurants – because that's how a waiter – a Muggle waiter – holds the bottle to pour it for you, the theory being that anything you'd pay for in a restaurant should be slightly nicer than anything you wouldn't."

He held the bottle out for her to see, and she took it and studied the dip in the bottom of the clear glass for a moment, running her fingers over it. "Hmm," she said, smiling and settling the bottle back on the floor. "Aren't you the fount of all knowledge."

"I try," he said, taking a forkful of lasagne from the precariously perched plate on his knee. "This is nice."

"You haven't even tried it yet," she said, thinking that even for Remus, pre-emptive praise was overly polite.

"No," he said, smiling as he looked away, "I meant – I meant having dinner with you. Properly. Something other than sandwiches."

She smiled at him, thinking that only Remus would think sitting on the floor with a plate of lasagne constituted doing things properly. "Of course, this is very nice as well," he said, after swallowing a mouthful. "It was good of Molly to bring you a thank you gift."

"Just a cover," she said, sniggering. "I think she was hoping to catch us in the middle of some kind of tryst."

"We're having trysts now?" he said, glancing at her, his eyes glimmering with flirtation.

Tonks attempted to swallow the butterflies that erupted in her stomach at the look in his eyes along with some lasagne, with limited success. "You don't mind, do you?" she said, taking a large gulp of wine to try and dislodge both.

"That we're having trysts now?" he said, glancing at the ceiling in false consideration. "No, I think you can put me down as all in favour."

She rolled her eyes at him, although she didn't mean it in the slightest. "No, I meant that I told Molly – confirmed her suspicions."

"Of course not," he said. "I mean, I _will_ miss her approaching me after meetings and offering me words of encouragement, but I daresay I'll soldier on."

"And now she'll get to quiz you about how things are going…."

"Quite," he said, smiling into another forkful of lasagne. "I daresay I have lots of desperately embarrassing conversations to look forward to."

They ate in silence for a moment, and Tonks enjoyed the way the flames in the grate lit up his face, highlighting the golden tones of his hair and the smile in his eyes. "She seemed pleased," Tonks said, and watched as Remus' lip twitched up slightly in the briefest hint of pre-smile amusement.

"Hmm," he said. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to say anything else, but then he tilted his head towards her a little. "Well," he said softly, peering at her through the ends of his fringe, "I have been after you for quite a while."

The fluttering returned in earnest. Apparently the butterflies in her stomach liked it when he said things like that, almost as much as she did. She smiled, enjoying the soul-deep tingle his words produced. "She thinks you're far more suitable for me than Dung," she said, trying to keep her tone light and flirty rather then giving in to the pull of mumbling like a fourteen year old in the throes of their first crush.

Remus threw his head back and laughed. "Oh well that's not true," he said. She opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her, smiling impishly. "I can't do you nearly as good a price on a knocked-off cauldron."

She laughed, nearly upsetting her plate in the process. "And you think that's what the modern witch looks for in a man, do you?" she said, righting it again on her lap and licking the cheese sauce that had dribbled onto her fingers off again.

"Isn't it?" Remus said, with the most adorable confused expression on his face that she couldn't resist offering him a reassuring, coyly flirty smile, even though she knew he was joking.

"Well normally…." she said, trailing off wistfully. "There's a chance we might waiver on the stolen goods if someone brought us appropriately childish sweets, though."

Remus grinned.

They ate and chatted and enjoyed the non-frightening music she'd chosen, and soon enough both plates were nestling together in the kitchen, after Tonks had, of course, in proper Molly style, offered Remus a second helping, and he, in proper Remus style, hadn't refused.

After he'd banished their plates to the sink, Remus poured them both another glass of wine and settled back against the sofa, resting his elbow on the seat. "We could get up," she offered, half wondering what her mother would say if she knew she'd had a man over for dinner and not only served him food she hadn't even prepared herself but made him sit on the floor, "sit down properly?"

"Too stuffed to move," he said. "How about you?"

"Yeah," she murmured. "I'm happy here, as long as you promise not to tell my mother about my lack of hostess skills."

"I won't breathe a word."

Tonks curled her feet underneath her and turned towards Remus, who stifled a yawn with his hand. She took a sip of her wine and then carefully set her glass on the floor, and, as she raised her hand to toy with the hair that was straying into his eyes, he smiled. "You look tired," she said. "You didn't have to come if you weren't up to it."

"I'm fine," he said, his eyebrows twitching up almost imperceptibly beneath her fingertips. "I wanted to come."

"Ok," she said, settling her hand back in her lap. She didn't want to make too much of it, but she imagined transformations must take it out of him, and she wanted him to know that she wouldn't mind if he ever cancelled on her because he was too worn out. "But, you know, if you ever – I mean if you are too tired, you only have to say. I'd understand."

Remus smiled at her kindly, giving her the impression that he had a far better handle on what she was really saying than her words had right to expect. After all, she hadn't even said 'full moon' or 'transformation' or anything to let him know what she was really talking about. But he seemed to know, and she thought it was reassuring, in a way, that she hadn't been the only one with the subject so close to the surface of her mind. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, and clasped his hands in his lap. "Sirius said you came over last night," he said, meeting her eye, the same kind smile extending all the way up to his gaze.

"Hmm," she said. "I thought I might catch you before the moon came up, but Scrimgeour cornered me as I was leaving."

"I thought you and Kingsley had managed to assuage him of his suspicions?"

"Oh we have, I think," she said. "He just wanted to chat generally, but by the time I managed to duck out it was too late to see you. Sirius seemed remarkably chipper," she said. "Have you been putting cheering charms on his drinks or something?"

Remus let out a soft snort of amusement. "Alas it's all his own doing, and therefore will probably be short-lived," he said. He reached for his glass and took a sip of wine, loosely cradling the glass in his lap. "I think – well – he quite likes the full moon," he said, looking up at the ceiling rather sadly. "I think he thinks that at least then he can be useful to someone."

Tonks smiled to herself, thinking that that was probably true, if the evidence she'd seen last night was anything to go on. "I caught him getting you dinner," she said, and Remus smiled.

"He can be very sweet when he chooses to be," he said, and when she raised a half-disbelieving eyebrow, he continued, looking ruefully down at his knees. "I know what people think of him – that he's arrogant and thoughtless and hot-headed; and he is all of those things, but…." Remus trailed off, lost in some thought or memory, and then shook his head a little and met her eye again. "Well, he's a lot more than that. And he _can_ be very sweet, when he chooses to be."

"Hmm," she said, thinking of his advice with a fondness she was rather unaccustomed to. "He can."

"He said you two had a chat last night," he said. "About me."

Tonks rolled her eyes, any fondness for her cousin dissipating, to be replaced by the sudden urge to wring his neck. "Typical," she said. "You don't call him motor-mouth Black for nothing, do you?"

Remus let out a soft chuckle at her annoyance, drawing his knees up underneath him and turning towards her, resting his elbow on the sofa seat and his head on his hand. "He wasn't indiscreet," he said, dropping his wine glass onto the floor and toying with the rim. "He didn't tell me exactly what you'd talked about, just that he'd said some things that he hoped were helpful, but that he wasn't entirely sure, on reflection, if he'd been any use at all."

"Oh," she said, suddenly feeling a bit guilty for jumping to conclusions and wanting to strangle the life out of him.

"And he apologised, just in case he'd done anything wrong."

"Apologised?" she said, voice high with astonishment. "Was he drunk?"

"Only a little," Remus said. "It _was_ breakfast time."

They shared a chuckle at her cousin's expense, and Tonks bit her lip, finding herself oddly touched by Sirius' doubts about his helpfulness, and his completely unnecessary apology. "I always wondered – " she started, before she decided that if she was going to tell the story she might as well do it properly. "When I met you," she said, "and Sirius said you two were mates, I thought he was joking – being sarcastic or something."

Remus frowned with amused confusion. "Really?" he said, his voice a little higher than normal with surprise.

"Yeah," she said. "I mean you just seemed so different. You were so polite and quiet and – I don't know – thoughtful, or something – and he was just so completely the opposite I thought he was making fun of you." Tonks tittered. Now it seemed completely ludicrous that she'd thought any such thing.

"And now?" he asked gently, his eyes surveying her with quiet inquisitiveness and not a little amusement. She smiled.

"Now I think it's not so strange," she said. "It makes sense – I mean I think you're more alike than a lot of people know."

"Hmm," Remus murmured, and although his murmur had been largely non-committal, his eyes danced with amusement, and she thought he probably agreed, whether he'd admit it, or not.

"And he's – well, both of you are, I suppose – very protective."

Remus smiled guiltily and looked away, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong and vaguely deviant. "Oh come on," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "Even though he says all that stuff about your filthy lecherous werewolf paws, he'd hex anyone else who said anything even remotely like that into the middle of next year, and I've seen the way you bristle when people say unkind things about him. And you do seem to be the only person he ever listens to."

"Oh he only ever listens when he already knows I'm right," Remus said, laughing quietly to himself, as he reached for his wine glass and took a sip.

"If he knows you're right," she said, brow furrowing a little at the thought, "why does he need to hear you say it?"

Remus swallowed another mouthful of wine and peered at her through the ends of his hair. "The thing with Sirius and me is that he's like the devil on my shoulder, and I'm like the conscience on his," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "It's not the case that he leads me astray when I never would have gone there on my own, or that he wouldn't know what the right thing to do was if I didn't tell him. Sometimes we both just need the encouragement of hearing out loud what's buried inside."

"Oh," she said softly. She took a sip of her wine, bouncing the glass on her lip for a moment as she thought. "It must have been nice," she said, "to have that, you know, growing up and stuff. I never did, not really."

"Not even at school?"

She offered him a rather faint smile. "No," she said, and Remus looked at her, raising his eyebrows encouragingly – so encouragingly that, even though she hadn't really intended to say any more about the subject, she continued. "Not for ages. I had mates and stuff, but no-one really special. And then when I was in fifth year – well, there was this boy I liked – but he wasn't interested, and he started going out with this girl called Louise Taylor." She toyed with a worn patch on the sofa seat, idly wondering how she'd ended up talking about herself when they were supposed to be talking about him. "Anyway, she thought that I might morph into her to kiss him, which I nev –"

"I know," he said, putting his hand lightly on her arm and immediately deflating the vehement denial she'd been prepared to offer. "I know you wouldn't."

She swallowed, her insides glowing at the thought that Remus had no trouble believing – in fact – hadn't thought for a moment, that she would ever do something like that. She stared fixedly at the worn patch on the sofa. "And she told everyone what she thought – and it didn't matter how much I said that I wouldn't do something like that, it was just like there was doubt in their minds, you know? And after that all the girls – even the ones I'd been mates with, were a bit suspicious of me," she said, meeting his eye and shrugging.

"And, as I think we've already established," Remus said, "all the boys you went to school with were idiots." She smiled.

"Something like that."

She took a large gulp of wine to drown the memory, and then re-filled both of their glasses, polishing off the bottle. "You said not for ages," he prompted.

"No, well," she said, suddenly feeling a bit more chipper at a slightly better recollection from her school days. "I did get my own back on Louise Taylor."

"One of your inventive hexes?"

"Oh yes," she said and he raised his eyebrows at her.

"What did you do?" he said. She suspected that he was trying to pull off some kind of concerned Professor voice, yet the glimmer of intrigued mischief in his eyes gave him away. Tonks glanced at the ceiling.

"Turned her clothes to slime. While she was wearing them. Right in the middle of Herbology."

"Oh," Remus said, his voice curving with barely suppressed glee. She met his eye, thinking that he looked more than a little impressed.

"And I got put in detention for a couple of weeks – re-potting moody adolescent Mandrakes for Professor Sprout – and that's where I met Steph."

"Steph?"

"She was in Hufflepuff," Tonks said. "And in the year below me, so we never would have met otherwise – but she'd turned Bobby Jenson's hair into cactus spikes because he'd snogged Tricia Yates behind the greenhouses when he was supposed to be going out with her – and so we kind of bonded. I mean, we were wearing earmuffs so it took a while to mime out what we were both there for, but after that…."

"You're still friends?"

"Hmm. Don't see each other very often, but yeah. Always will be, I think," she said.

She watched the shadows dance across Remus' face as he shifted, dropping his head a little deeper into his hand and peering at her through the firelight. She wondered what Steph would make of him. She hadn't seen her since before Christmas – she'd been so busy she'd barely had time for a proper conversation with anyone outside the Order – but it was an intriguing thought. And Steph was always keen to meet any man she was seeing, and normally pretty quick to tell her they were losers and she could do better. And so far, to be fair, she'd been right.

But Remus wasn't like the other blokes she'd been out with. He listened when she spoke and he was always interested in whatever she had to say, and for all his inside-melting flirtation, she knew he wasn't just after one thing. He always gave her the impression that he took her seriously as a person, and she really wasn't used to that. But she liked it.

"What's this Steph like, then?" Remus said. "Apart from her proficiency with unusual follicle spells?"

"She's great," Tonks said. "When we started hanging out together, she asked me if I was really a Metamorphmagus – if I wasn't just doing spells to change myself, and when I said yes, she just kind of nodded and said 'cool' and then never really mentioned it again."

"I can see why you'd like that," he said quietly.

"Can you?" she said, a little startled at how surprised she sounded.

"Hmm," he murmured. "You must get tired of people treating you like a novelty."

Tonks smiled faintly. "I'd rather people treat me like a novelty than a freak," she said, and Remus' eyebrow twitched in surprise, or as if her words had stung him, somehow. She waited for him to say something, listening to the crackle of the fire and the swirling of the music from her stereo, which all of a sudden seemed very far away indeed.

Remus took a sip of his wine and looked straight at her, almost as if he could see right through her. "You know you're not either to me, don't you?" he said. Her breath caught in her chest, but she managed a nod. She took a steadying sip of her wine, and then another one for good measure.

"What am I then?" she said, rather more teasingly than she expected to, given the circumstances. Remus smiled and avoided her eyes, suddenly fascinated by the flames in the grate.

"Just Tonks," he said. Her insides squirmed happily.

"Well that'll do," she said. "For now."

She followed his gaze and watched the flames for a moment, knowing that although they'd skirted the issue, they still hadn't really talked about Remus being a werewolf. She didn't want to force the issue, but she did want to talk about it, if only to let him know that, in the same way that he accepted the idiosyncrasies of going out with someone like her, she was prepared to accept the idiosyncrasies of going out with him. To her, that was really all it was, idiosyncrasies, and she didn't want to leave talking about it for so long that it became a problem, the werewolf in the room that they both knew was there but didn't want to talk about.

She took a deep breath, bit her lip, and decided it was time to broach the subject.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. ****Apologies if the ending feels a little arbitrary (and is a great big cliffy) – it is, entirely, since this chapter was initially just the opening section of the next, completely monstrous, one.I decided to chop it to make the thing a bit easier to read, since I'm sure none of you really want to plough through twenty thousands words at a time, but it has meant that this one's mostly set up for the next. It does mean, though, thatyou'll get the next one pretty sharpish. **

**Anyway, it's bribe time – so anyone who reviews this gets a Remus of their very own to feed pasta-based treats to. Sexy Remus favours cannelloni, Flirty Remus comes with carbonara, Romantic Remus, naturally, comes with spaghetti bolognaise you get to eat like Lady and the Tramp, and Mischievous Remus brings microwave pasta because he's got much more interesting plans than watching water boil for half an hour ;). **


	13. The Werewolf Conversation

Tonks stared into the fire, watching as the orange flames danced with each other. She hadn't said anything at all. It turned out that broaching the subject was a lot easier thought than done.

She had no idea – absolutely no idea – how to go about bringing up what they needed to talk about, and silently cursed that she wasn't one of those girls who always had a sophisticated way of saying things, of dealing with difficult topics with flair and wit, rather than the kind of girl who tried so hard to say the right thing that she inevitably said exactly the wrong thing. When it came to it, she was as much of a klutz when it came to conversation as carrying tea trays.

She mulled over the possibilities: 'So, are we going to talk about the werewolf thing or not?'; 'So, you're a werewolf. Discuss.'; 'So, I'm enjoying this uncomfortable silence. How about you? Shall we talk about you being a werewolf or just wait until we both die of old age?'.

She leant on her hand and looked at Remus for inspiration, and he smiled slightly. She knew it didn't really matter which of the galling options she went for to get the ball rolling, that whatever they said next was the important thing, but still she couldn't bring herself to use any of them. Instead, she said "So why _are_ you friends with Sirius?".

Remus met her eye and considered her for a moment, and then nodded something that looked a little bit like concession. "When my friends," he said, " – James, and Sirius, and Peter – found out about me, they all came to see me in the hospital wing." He paused and fingered his wine glass, tracing the stem with his fingertips. His forehead creased in consideration or thought, and then he continued. "They'd figured out that I was a werewolf after I disappeared at another full moon under some desperately lame pretence, and they'd spent all night talking about what they were going to do about it, so they were there just after dawn. I was barely settled in bed. James and Peter – they were nice about it – James particularly, and they told me that they didn't care – that it didn't matter to them what I was. But Sirius…." Remus swallowed. "He barely said anything at all, and I thought that maybe he didn't feel the same, that he was just there because James had talked him into it or dragged him along."

"Oh," Tonks said, rather hollowly. Remus smiled faintly.

"But it wasn't that at all," he said. "For the first time, maybe ever, I just don't think he had anything to say. It affected him, I think, more than the others – and I don't really know why because up until then we hadn't been that close, but…." The crease on his forehead deepened as if still, after all this time, he had trouble making sense of it. "Of course it didn't last long," he said. "Within a couple of weeks he was joking about it and asking me all sorts of wildly inappropriate and insensitive questions, but that first day…. When I got back to our room, he was the only one there, and he told me that they'd find a way to help me. And I told him that there wasn't anything they could do – that my parents had looked for a cure and there wasn't one. And he – of course – said he didn't care, that he and James would invent one if they had to, or find something else." He smiled faintly, before continuing quietly. "And they did."

He paused for a moment, and then took a quick inward breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was back to its normal self. "Anyway, after that, he'd always try and find a moment alone with me after the full moon, let me know that he hadn't forgotten what he'd promised."

"That doesn't really sound like him," she said.

"It wasn't," Remus said quietly. "That's why it meant – why it continues to mean – so much to me."

Tonks smiled at what he'd shared with her, and Remus dropped his hand onto the sofa, sitting up a little straighter than he had been. She thought she could just see him inching his hand slowly towards where hers was resting, but the sensation of his warm fingers wrapping around hers never came. "Sirius said he offered to bring you upstairs last night, and you said no," he said softly.

The thought flashed through her mind that what he was saying and his hand's halted progress towards hers were connected, as if he thought, perhaps, that whatever reason she had for not going to see him would mean that she wouldn't want him taking her hand.

She nodded in answer, but she didn't want him to misunderstand her reasons, as she thought he may well have done. "But – " She slipped her hand underneath his and laced their fingers together, watching as his fingers closed against hers, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw his lips twitch into a tiny smile. She inched towards him and met his gaze, hooking her thumb over his. " – well, I don't want you to think that I didn't come up because I was scared, or – I don't know – disgusted or something, because I wasn't." She smiled, she hoped reassuringly, and he returned it. "I just thought I should give you the chance to say no, rather than just barging in."

Remus nodded his understanding, and she thought there was a distinct spark of relief in his eyes. He took an audible breath, and as he let it out his shoulders relaxed, and he smiled softly, making her insides dance. "Thank you," he said, giving her fingers a slight squeeze.

"Well, I didn't want to be rude," she said, glancing down at the carpet and shivering a little, owing to his thumb lightly brushing hers. She wondered how on earth she was going to have a serious conversation with Remus if he kept doing things to make her insides quiver.

One corner of Remus' mouth hitched up slightly in the beginnings of a smile and he slowly raised an eyebrow at her, an expression that did nothing to arrest the quivering. "I appreciate that werewolf etiquette is a difficult thing to navigate," he said.

"I don't suppose there's a guide?" she said, and he let out a soft amused snort.

"Unfortunately not," he said. His eyes sparkled for a moment, but then his amusement gave way to a thoughtful frown. "If I'm honest, I'm not entirely sure what would have happened if you had've come up," he said, scuffing her thumb lightly with his. "I haven't encountered humans often since I've had the potion, and never for protracted periods."

"Not even Sirius?"

"No," he said. "He always transforms."

Tonks twitched her eyebrows in recognition, then shot him a cheeky smile. "Is he as annoying a dog as he is a human?"

"More so, sometimes," Remus said with a soft laugh. "He likes to think he's the alpha male, however many times I prove to him that he isn't." Tonks chuckled as the image of Sirius strutting around in his dog form, annoying Remus, danced through her mind. She wondered if wolf Remus would – or could – let out the same amused huff of resignation that he would every other day of the month.

She shifted towards Remus a little, and their knees touched. She curled into the sofa, resting both of her arms on the seat and dropping her chin onto them, trailing her fingers over his.

It hadn't been lost on her that she'd worried about how she was going to broach the subject, start the conversation, and here they were, just having it. And it didn't feel strained or forced or awkward, or any of the things that she'd worried that it might, and the thought made her tingle, and feel quite brave about what she wanted to say next. "Do you mind if I ask about it?" she said, peering up at Remus through her tomato red hair.

"Well," he said, smiling slightly as he reached for his wine with his free hand, "that depends _entirely_ on what you're going to ask."

"Oh," she said, laughing.

"It's all right," he said. "Do your worst."

She opened her mouth to ask about what it was like, but he cut her off. "Actually, before you say anything, I'll just get these out of the way because even though people don't normally come out and ask, I know they're thinking about it," he said. "So – " Remus took a deep breath and glanced up at the ceiling as if he was about to reel off his weekly shopping list. " – yes, I shed on the carpet; no, I have no special yearning to mark my territory, or fondness for dog food, or for chasing balls or any other doggy pursuits, whether transformed or otherwise; I have no idea how bad my breath is, having never been in a position to tell, and although Padfoot assures me it's not exactly on the fragrant side, he's hardly in a position to criticise; and no, I definitely don't fancy animals." He raised an eyebrow and offered her a lop-sided half-smile as he tipped his wine glass towards her. "Although if you want to hear an amusing story that borders on the very brink of tastelessness, do please ask Sirius about the German shepherd named Bitsy he once encountered in Hogsmeade who took quite a shine to him."

Remus took a sip of his wine and she laughed, grateful for his talent for always finding a way to make things lighter, especially since she knew he was doing it for her, to make this easier for her. "Well that's everything I wanted to know covered," she said, and he laughed.

He set his glass down on the carpet and then shifted, echoing her position perfectly, resting his chin on one forearm as he curled down onto the sofa, leaving the hand she was toying with free. "It's all right," he said, fixing his gaze on hers. "Ask whatever you like. I really don't mind," he added, and his eyes smiled kindly, letting her know that he was utterly sincere.

"I just wondered what it's like," she said, tilting her head to one side on her arm so she could look at him properly.

Remus took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and although he had a rather thoughtful look in his eyes, she didn't feel as if she'd made him at all uneasy. "Not as bad as it used to be," he replied, with a twisted smile. "The potion makes things better. Knowing that my mind will still be mine makes it easier to bear the physical side of things."

"It still hurts, though?" she asked, not even sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"I'm used to it," he said, and although his tone had been kind, reassuring, she could hear the steeliness, the defiance in his voice.

She knew instantly what Sirius had been talking about. Remus had phrased his answer as if it really didn't bother him, brushed the question off, but at the same time, his eyes were watchful, beseeching her not to press the matter. It was that, more than anything, that neatly illustrated the fact that, although he'd appeared to, he hadn't actually answered the question.

Tonks didn't want to bombard him with things that he clearly didn't want to talk about, questions he obviously didn't want to answer, and she certainly had no morbid fascination with the idea of him in pain, but she did want an accurate picture of what he had to deal with, and decided on a different approach. "What about today?" she asked. "Does it take you long to recover?"

"No," he said, gently. "Mostly I just feel a bit used."

"Used?" she said.

"Hmm. Like I've run a really long way – only without the satisfaction of having gone anywhere."

"I meant what I said before – you could've said you were too tired."

"I'm tired," he said softly, raising his eyebrows at her in the very gentlest of reprimands. "Not _too_ tired."

She smiled her understanding, and although Remus hadn't said anything explicitly, she thought she knew how they were going to handle this. He didn't want any particular fuss, or any mothering, or looking after, because that would be drawing attention to what he'd been through – the worst, most painful part, and he didn't want to do that – maybe couldn't, in order to deal with it.

He was giving her the impression that what he wanted more than anything was for things to be completely normal – business as usual, that he didn't mind talking about being a werewolf, but that he didn't want any special treatment or consideration because of it. She leant forward and let her fingers wander through the hair at his temple, and he turned ever so slightly into her hand.

She wondered if he'd ever be completely honest about it, say 'actually, it hurts like hell' and accept whatever comfort there was for that she might be able to offer – but she supposed that that was what Sirius had talked about, that Remus' way of dealing with this was to make sure that everyone else thought he was all right – that that was what was important to him, that was what helped.

She wondered if it really did, or if he just couldn't stand the thought of other people worrying about him. She wondered why he did it, why he always put himself at the bottom of the pile. Did he really think that was where he belonged?

"You look thoughtful," he said softly, and she smiled.

"Sorry."

"Well I think I might – "

He disentangled his fingers from hers and rummaged in his pocket, eventually pulling out a chocolate galleon and tossing it to her. "That should be enough to cover it," he said, and she laughed as she caught it.

"Do you always have chocolate in your pocket?" she asked.

"Hmm."

"Why?" she said, giggling as she unwrapped the foil. There was something a bit odd – but so very fitting – about Remus, a grown man, always having chocolate to hand.

He leant forward conspiratorially. "Well," he said, his voice low as if he was about to tell her a huge secret. "The logical, intellectual reason would be that chocolate is full of iron, which helps alleviate tiredness, bouts of which I am, unfortunately, rather prone to." She snapped the coin in two and handed one half to him, before putting hers in her mouth. "Thanks," he said, before returning to his altogether more conspiratorial tone. "Of course there's every chance that the real reason is that I just like it."

He popped his half of the coin into his mouth and twitched his eyebrows at her. "Now," he said, settling back down onto the sofa and folding his arms neatly underneath his chin, "I believe you owe me a thought – well, half a one, at least."

Tonks smiled, thinking that the thoughts she had been having now seemed rather out of place with the levity of their conversation, and should probably be filed for another day, if not dismissed altogether. She followed his example, nestling back onto the sofa, but inching forward until her elbows bumped against his. "It's just – " she said. "There are questions – you know, quite a lot of questions – that I wouldn't mind asking, but I don't want you to feel like some walking werewolf textbook."

"I don't," he said, nudging her elbow reassuringly with his. "I really don't mind. Ask whatever you like."

"Ok," she said. "But you have to promise to tell me to shut up if I say something stupid."

Remus let out a soft snort of amusement and then reached for her hand. He placed it on his arm and covered it with his, resting his chin on both of them. "Tonks," he said, squeezing her fingers affectionately. "I've done this with Sirius. I doubt you could say anything even half as stupid as he did, even if you tried."

She let out a long, amused sigh, thinking that that was probably a very good point, and her mind boggled at the thought of what twisted questions her cousin might have come up with. She took a moment to think about what she wanted to ask, and her thoughts from the previous night swam quickly to the surface. "What do you do?" she said, leaning towards him inquisitively over her arm. "I mean these days, when you're a wolf."

"Nothing very exciting," Remus said, shrugging slightly. "Pad around a bit, sniff things, howl if I feel like it. If I'm feeling adventurous I'll conjure myself a patch of grass or a tree to play with before I transform, but most often I just curl up in front of the fire and wait to turn back again."

"That really isn't very exciting."

"No," he said, sighing amusedly. "I'm glad to say that these days I'm usually as boring a wolf as I am a man."

She chuckled softly. "Must be weird, though," she said. "I mean even if you're just curling up in front of the fire, everything must feel different."

"Hmm," Remus hummed, apparently battling a laugh. "Weird would about cover it."

She poked him admonishingly on the arm and he chuckled quietly into his sleeve for a moment. "I've been doing it for a long time," he said. "I'm pretty used to it, but it is a little strange to have to adapt to having a different body, different senses, even though it's still my mind in charge. It's certainly a different perspective on the world," he said, "if only because I'm lower down. It can be useful if I've lost something under a cupboard or forgotten that I've put something under the bed."

Tonks chuckled lightly because she hadn't thought of it like that, or maybe she hadn't thought of Remus as the kind of person who would lose things under cupboards, she wasn't sure. "Are you – " She stopped herself, realising that she was about to say something stupid.

"What?" Remus said.

"I was just going to ask if you're – I don't know – you-like," she said, with a shrug. "But I don't suppose you'd know, would you?"

Remus smiled. "No," he said, "but Sirius informs me that as time has passed, I've got more me-like. In fact, he said that last night I gave him one of my apparently infamous 'won't you please shrivel up and die' looks."

"What was he doing to earn one of those?"

"Chewing my ear."

"Oh," she said, giggling at what a strange thought that was, her cousin, as a dog, chewing on Remus, as a wolf's, ear.

"It's mostly down to the potion," he said. "Having your own mind means you get to keep more of yourself."

"What about before?" she asked. "Before the potion and everything?"

"Well," he said. "That was – " His face took on an oddly haunted look, and she regretted asking the question.

"It's all right," she said, "you don't have to talk about it."

"No," he said quickly, "I don't mind. It's just – " His forehead creased as he thought. "It's not an easy thing to explain," he said. "To be one thing until the sun sets, and then to be something else, something utterly evil, something you can't really control, something that has no soul, no desires you recognise, it's – " The crease deepened, and Remus looked up at the ceiling for guidance he must have known it couldn't possibly offer. "It's not even like being an animal," he said eventually, "having animalistic desires, because a werewolf doesn't have those – just the mindless desire to destroy for no reason other than that's what it does."

"Does it – " She stopped. She had been going to say 'scare you?', but it occurred to her that the question might be better applied to the past tense, easier to answer that way. "I mean – were you scared?"

"Of course," he said. "Tearing myself apart is one thing, doing it to someone else…."

She thought she saw the briefest trace of a shudder pass through him, but as soon as she thought she'd seen it, it was gone again, and his gaze was as even and steady as it ever had been. He lifted his hand off hers and gently toyed with her fingers, tracing their outlines distractedly with his fingertips while his eyes watched, fascinated.

"Do you mind if I ask how it happened?" she said, and Remus looked up.

"Not at all," he said, "but I was five, so I don't remember a great deal about it – just enough to know that I don't really want to remember any more." Tonks almost started at the word 'five', and when Remus paused, she slid her fingers between his and squeezed them slightly, as if anything she did could make up for that five year old boy having been through what he'd been through.

She tried not to think about how young five was – that when she was that age all she'd really had to worry about was which teddy bear she wanted to take to bed with her at night, that all she'd had to fear were the entirely make-believe monsters under the bed. But he'd had monsters that were all too real and a part of him. He must have had to grow up so fast…. She stopped herself from dwelling on it, because allowing those thoughts too far in was too hard, too painful, and she was utterly convinced that her getting overly emotional about this was the last thing Remus needed. And she really didn't want that.

She wanted desperately to be what he needed, because he was always so very good at being exactly what she needed, and it was about time she returned the favour.

Remus returned the gentle pressure of her fingers on his, and then met her eye with a soft, contemplative gaze. "I remember being in the woods," Remus continued, his eyes flickering from hers to the sofa and back again, his voice a little quieter than it had been, "and it was dark, and I was panicking that I didn't know the way home, and then there was a flash of something moving very fast, and then, well – " He paused, frowning, and then said "pain," with great reluctance, and quickly continued. "The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital and not really knowing why I was there because I didn't feel ill. And I tried to say, but – " He stopped and shifted his gaze from hers to her fingers. "My mum just couldn't stop crying, and my dad – he was trying to be stoic, telling me that everything was all right and I shouldn't worry, but I could tell something was very, very wrong, because why would he be telling me that everything was all right if it really was, or telling me not to worry if there wasn't something to worry about?"

Tonks almost smiled at the thought of five year old Remus having such wise, grown up, deductive thoughts, but found she was too busy trying to swallow her rising emotion to form a proper facial expression. "You didn't feel – " She stumbled for the word, eventually settling on " – different?"

"No," he said. "They'd given me a lot of potions – used a lot of different spells – maybe that was it, but no. That's what made everything seem so confusing." He smiled rather sadly. "And then all the Healers appeared, and I could see it in their eyes."

"What?" she said so faintly it was little more than a whisper.

Remus took a slow, deep breath. "They were scared," he said, exhaling the words as his eyebrows hitched higher on his forehead. He swallowed, meeting her eye with a tentative openness, as if he thought what he was saying was in some way risky. Which, she supposed, in some ways, it was. It couldn't be easy to admit that people were scared of you, especially to someone who you wanted to think well of you. "And I was so little – I didn't understand it properly – but I knew something had changed, because why would anyone be scared of me?" He paused and his eyes roamed the room. "Anyway," he said. "We all sat down and talked – and they explained what had happened, and what would happen from now on, but I'm not sure I was even really listening. Even though I'd grown up with magic all around me it seemed – well, daft, fantastical, because werewolves were something that lived in books and scary stories. And, to be honest, it didn't seem very likely at all that I was one, especially when I didn't feel any different. I didn't understand it for a very long time," he said. "I don't think I wanted to."

"But what about..?"

She left the question unfinished, hanging in the air between them. "The full moon?" he said, lifting a questioning eyebrow at her, and she nodded into her arm, feeling a bit ashamed that she couldn't say it. "Every month my parents would lock me in the cellar and leave me there – " She felt her eyes widen in horror, and Remus placed a pacifying hand over hers on his arm. "I know it sounds cruel," he said, smiling a smile she could just make out over the curve of his arm, "but there really wasn't anything else they could have done – and they did – well they did try to make it nice for me," he said, "even though all I ever did was shred the blankets they left and smash up anything else," he added, adopting a rueful mutter as if he was talking about someone else's naughty puppy. Tonks smiled at him, and he rolled his eyes a little. "I'd wake up down there covered in bites and scratches," he said, "not really knowing what had happened, because I had no real memories of anything that happened after the moon came up for years. For a couple of months, I thought a monster was attacking me in my sleep."

"But they must have explained it?"

"They tried," he said. "Over and over, but I don't think I really wanted to believe them. I think, perhaps, that there are some things you just have to figure out for yourself. It was a relief, to be honest, when I realised it was me."

"How come?"

"Because, for one thing," he said, lifting his chin onto his arm, raising an eyebrow at her and smiling, "it meant my parents weren't leaving me in the cellar at the mercy of some monster."

She smiled at him, suddenly flooded by a wave of warm, tingling, affection for the man sitting next to her on the carpet, who poked fun at and told wry jokes about something most people would have been crushed by. When she thought of what he'd been through and who he was now, her insides glowed with admiration for him, for how he'd dealt with it. She knew if it had been her, she'd have wailed about how unfair it was that something like that had happened to her, been angry with people for their stupid prejudices, stamped her feet and railed at a world that didn't want her to be a part of it because of something that wasn't her fault and she couldn't control. But he hadn't done any of that, and she had nothing but respect for him because of it.

She knew that there were still things she needed to digest, and her head buzzed with questions she was still keen to have answered, but she thought that she did understand a bit about what it was like for him. After all, she had a head start on most people, having had her fair share of Healers poking at her as if she was an interesting experiment rather than a person, more than her fair share of completely unfounded suspicion and her share and someone else's of experiences that were distinctly out of the ordinary.

Through the buzz of mingled half-formed thoughts she was having, one seemed to nudge its way to the surface and become more defined. "When you said you were bitten in the woods," she said, "you don't mean the ones you took me to on Valentine's Day, do you?"

Remus smiled as if her question wasn't entirely unexpected. "You're surprised I'd go back."

"Well yes," she said, as if it was obvious, and he nodded.

"At first I didn't want to go there at all – I didn't even want to look at the woods, but…." He trailed off and she smiled at him encouragingly. "When I'd recovered from the bite, and accepted things, my dad made me go back – just to the edge of the trees at first, and then we'd go a bit further in each time, and eventually we went right back to where it happened, where he'd found me."

Tonks' eyes widen as she took in what he was saying. "Why did he – I mean – " She'd started out a little indignantly on Remus' behalf, but then felt her face crumple in sympathy. "You must have been so frightened."

"No more than he was," Remus said, his eyebrows raising a little. "It was the only time I ever saw him truly rattled by anything. His hands would shake and he'd try and hide it…. Sometimes he gripped my hand so tightly I thought my fingers would break."

"Then why did he..? I mean you could have moved away, or something."

Remus offered her a faint, stiff smile. "He said that we shouldn't be scared of a place just because something bad had happened there, that if we were scared and it stopped us doing the things we used to do, things we wanted to do – " He paused, pressing his lips so tightly together that they turned white.

It wasn't his normal pause as he considered what he was going to say next, how to phrase it or which particular set of words to use, more a pause to settle or steel himself, as if he was more deciding if he _could_ say anything else than what. Her heart raced at the thought that the memory had upset him, and her stomach tightened as she wondered what she should do. She squeezed his arm a little, hoping that he might find it reassuring or comforting or whatever it was that he needed, and he placed his hand over hers, squeezing back before clearing his throat. As Tonks looked at him, she got the impression that it hadn't been entirely successful in dislodging whatever emotion it was that he'd hoped it would.

"He always said that you shouldn't stop doing something, fighting for something, just because you were scared – that if you were scared, it just meant that what you were trying to do was important. He always wanted me to be normal," he said, his voice cracking barely perceptibly, "or as normal as I could be, and normal boys who live near woods play in them. It was more important to him to try his best to let me have that than his fear – or mine – " he said, blinking as his eyes swept the ceiling, then the room, "was." He swallowed. "He was very – "

"Brave," Tonks said, catching his eye.

She wasn't entirely sure where the word had come from – she hadn't even meant to interrupt him – but she wasn't sorry she'd said it. She thought that that was what it was, to help someone else face their fears in spite of your own, to push your own anxiety or misgivings aside for a bigger picture, for something you thought was more important.

Remus returned her gaze with a rather startled, disbelieving, one of his own, and held it for just a moment. Her chest tightened at the unfettered emotion in his eyes, and she didn't want to breathe for fear of shattering whatever fragile thing was hanging between them. Then Remus' mouth hitched into the slightest of smiles, and he looked down at the sofa, hiding most of his face behind his arm and giving in to a rather breathy chuckle that was at once full of amused gratitude, and laced with a melancholy so piercing that it made her insides ache. "I was going to say stubborn," he said, exhaling the words, and she bit her lip and joined in with his chuckle.

She lifted her hand and gently moved his hair away from his eyes, even though she knew that it never stayed back for very long. "I think you're very brave," she said quietly, heart pounding. "You must have inherited that, too."

Although Remus' face remained tilted down, she could see his smile widen. "I'm not sure bravery comes into it," he said, looking up, meeting her eye with a wry twinkle in his. "Whether I stand up and take it like a man or cower in the corner praying it won't happen and crying my eyes out, it's still going to. I'm not sure you can be brave about the inevitable."

" 'Course you can," she said, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "I think the way you deal with it is brave – you just get on with it. You don't stamp your feet and whine about how unfair it is – "

"I feel like it sometimes," he said, his eyes flickering up to hers. She smiled at the way his eyes were dancing with amusement again, and he offered her a rather sheepish smile, as if realising what he'd just done – that for all the renewed mischief in his eyes, he'd just, probably quite unintentionally, said the most honest thing he'd said all evening, let her have a glimpse of how he really felt about it.

"But you don't," she said, smiling back at him over her arm.

"It wouldn't help," he said, with a rather resigned sigh.

"No," she said. "But, you know, if you did ever want to stamp your feet and have a good whine, I have a very sturdy floor, and I can conjure really great ear muffs – you know, since I had all that practice with the Mandrakes – so you wouldn't be bothering me."

Remus laughed, and she grinned, glad that, for once, she'd managed to say the right thing, make things better for him. "I'll bear that in mind," he said.

He peered at her through the ends of his hair, which had, of course, drifted back into his eyes, for a moment, before allowing his fingers to stray back to hers and gently trace patterns on the back of her hand. "You don't think it's too strange, do you, that I'd take you to somewhere something like that had happened?" he said.

Tonks thought about it for a moment, not really knowing what to say. She thought it _was_ strange – or maybe not strange – impressive that he'd go back there at all, that he'd want to take her there. "Why did you?" she said.

"I have a lot of happy memories there too," he said. "Running riot with my friends, James knocking himself out on a low branch and coming round rambling about how he wanted Lily to kiss him better and then going bright red when he realised we'd all heard him, lying in one of the clearings in the sun after I'd finished work at the pub and having your dear cousin pelt me with water bombs old-what's-her-face's daughter had shown him how to make, walking through the snow with my dad, trying to find the perfect Christmas tree…. Maybe I just wanted to add showing a beautiful girl the stars to my collection."

She smiled and looked down bashfully, thinking that a blush to match her red hair could well be on the horizon. She wasn't sure if she was more flattered that he thought her beautiful or that something they'd done together had joined a list of cherished memories. She suspected the latter, since it was that that was unmistakably responsible for her stomach's renewed interest in fluttering. "How did you – I mean – how did you get over it? Enough that you'd want to take me there or go there with your friends?" she said.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "after a while it just dawned on me that the worst thing that could happen had happened, and therefore there was nothing, really, to be afraid of. I mean, I _am_ the thing in the woods other people are scared of," he said. "Since I realised that, I haven't really been scared of anything, except the moon."

Tonks supposed that that made a lot of sense, although she couldn't, however hard she tried, see the man sitting in front of her as something to be scared of. She'd met her fair share of real monsters, people who had _chosen_ to plumb the worst, most vile depths of what a witch or wizard was capable of, and she couldn't place Remus amongst them just because of something that had happened to him long ago and because once a month he sprouted fur and claws. He couldn't help what had happened to him, and they could have, and that made all the difference in the world.

"Ok," she said, thinking that he'd probably had enough for one night, and that, after all, now they'd broached the subject, were over the initial hurdle, they could talk about whenever one of them wanted. "No more questions."

"It's all right," he said. "You've got a right to know."

"No I haven't," she said. "But thank you for telling me."

Remus lifted one arm, nestling his elbow into the sofa cushion and then resting his head on his hand. He smiled slightly tentatively. "Well," he said. "This has all been very serious."

"I know," she said. "I bet you wish you'd said you were too tired now."

For a moment she thought he was going to laugh, but he suppressed it. "Not at all," he said softly. "But I am half-expecting to be faced with a pig snout or some slightly more liquid clothes if I lean in to kiss you."

She rolled her eyes at him and gave him an admonishing shove. "What?" he said, shying away playfully, apparently bewildered by what on earth he might have said wrong. "Am I in for carrot fingers or another one of your infamous vegetable body-part hexes instead?"

She pretend-glared at him until he relented and grinned. "Do you want another drink?" she said, gesturing to the empty wine bottle.

"Do I need one?" he said, his expression half-amused and half-anxious, as if he wasn't quite sure whether he should be joking or not.

"No," she said, sighing and then rolling her eyes in good-natured exasperation at him. "I just thought you might like one."

"Ok," he said. "Then I would love one."

She summoned another bottle of wine from the kitchen and performed an uncorking spell a little over-enthusiastically, firing the cork across the room. She winced as it ricocheted off the fireplace and hurtled back towards them, narrowly missing Remus as he quickly ducked out of its way. She couldn't help laughing. "Sorry," she muttered.

"You know, if you want me to leave, you could just say," he said, straightening up experimentally, eyeing the room cautiously for more missiles. "You don't have to try and put me in St Mungo's to get rid of me."

Even though he'd been joking, she knew there was probably some truth in what he'd said, that somewhere inside he was wondering if she did want him to go, if what he'd said had changed how she felt. She wondered if some big speech, some well-worded proclamation about her feelings for him were needed, but she really wasn't very good at that sort of thing, and Sirius' words about Remus never listening, needing to be shown, echoed through her mind.

She abandoned the wine and shuffled forward, taking his face in her hand and meeting his eye. He raised his eyebrows a little apprehensively and she stroked the side of his face lightly. "I don't want you to leave," she said softly, and pressed her lips to his.

She kissed him gently, with as much affection as she could muster, which actually turned out to be a not-entirely-surprisingly large amount. Having made her point, she was just about to pull away when his lips caught hers, persuading them to stay exactly where they were for a moment, and he kissed her back.

His lips were soft and warm against hers, and made her feel utterly, wonderfully drowsy, and just a little bit light-headed, as if they'd finished the second bottle of wine instead of just opening it. The way his lips moved so gently over hers meant that she couldn't help thinking there was something oddly grateful about the way he was kissing her, as if he hadn't quite expected this to happen, or was relieved, somehow, that it had. His hand drifted up to her shoulder, and she barely felt it settle, but when his feather light caress moved along to her neck, she shivered at the sensations his teasing fingers produced. He moved away a little and placed tiny kisses along her cheek, before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him. She slid her arms around his waist gladly, and he squeezed her tightly. They stayed like that for a moment, and she could feel him taking rather uneven breaths against her shoulder. She rubbed his back a little, and once his breathing had returned to its normal steady pace, he gave her another squeeze and moved away. He didn't go very far, though, and one hand dallied on her shoulder, playing with the ends of her hair. "Thanks," he said.

"What for?"

Remus rolled his eyes half-heartedly at himself and smiled hesitantly. "Not wanting me to leave," he said. She thought he was going to say something else, but instead he took out his wand and summoned the bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from the kitchen, grinning boyishly at her as he caught it. "Are you game?" he said opening the bag as she poured them both a glass of wine.

"Always," she said, setting the bottle down and delving into the bag enthusiastically.

She pulled a green bean from the bag and held it out, studying it on her palm, wondering what it might be. She always liked to try and guess, to be prepared for the worst possible outcome so that when the bean turned out to be relatively innocuous she was pleasantly surprised. Remus delved into the bag no less enthusiastically than she had, ending up with a rather vicious-looking red one. "Ready?" he said, and she nodded. He nodded back and they ate their beans simultaneously, both instinctively reaching for their wine glasses, just in case.

Remus smiled pleasantly. "Tomato sauce," he said. "Could've been worse. What's yours?" Tonks chewed thoughtfully.

"Grass, I think," she said. It wasn't entirely unpleasant.

"Nice," he said. He tossed another bean into his mouth, offering her the bag again. She took one, smiling at its vivid pink colour and then again that it was only candyfloss and not the earthworm-flavour she'd been half-expecting. Remus took a sip of his wine and then met her eye with a rather meditative expression. "I'm sorry I haven't been more forthcoming about this," he said.

"About what?" Tonks asked, frowning a little as she wondered why he might think he had to be forthcoming about Every Flavour Beans. Remus let out a soft breath of laughter.

"About me being a werewolf," he said.

"Oh. No, it's fine," she said. "Really."

He smiled, but continued anyway. "It's just – well, I wasn't really sure how much you'd want to know. I thought maybe you'd prefer not to think about it, that you wouldn't want me wittering on about it like an old woman with a disturbing medical condition," he said. He looked down at the sofa cushion, studying the threads intently. "But if that's not how you feel, if you'd rather know things…." He glanced up, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry you felt you had to talk to Sirius instead of me."

"It wasn't like that," she said, shaking her head a little for emphasis. "He was just there. Right place right time, kind of thing."

"I'll tell him that," he said, raising his eyebrows in mock-threat. "He _will_ be flattered."

She chuckled, and Remus scooped a couple of beans out of the bag and held them out for her. "Yellow or black?"

"Yellow," she said, taking it. "There are far less unpleasant yellow things than black."

"You think?" he said.

"Definitely."

"I can think of plenty of unpleasant things that are yellow," he said.

"Like what?"

"Well my aunt Beryl makes the most appalling custard…."

She chuckled and they both ate their beans, Remus wincing before he swallowed, evidently having discovered the hard way that she was right. "See? Lemon meringue," she said. "What was yours? Slug or something?"

"Worse. Liquorice." He grimaced and she sniggered at him, but he didn't seem to mind. He went back to toying with her hair, separating strands and letting them slide through his fingers before catching them again. He always did seem to find her hair strangely captivating. "You know," he said, reaching for his wine glass and taking a sip to wash away the last of the liquorice, "if I was a real gentleman, I'd offer to taste your beans before you ate them to make sure they weren't anything nasty."

"I suppose you would," she said. "How would that work, though?"

"I could nibble off a corner?" he offered, raising his eyebrows hopefully. She chuckled at how adorable he looked, and then reached for the bag. She rooted around inside until she found a nice dark brown one, and held it out to him.

"Go on, then," she said, and he laughed softly, taking the bean from her.

He nibbled off a piece of the end rather delicately and then looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Black treacle," he said. "Actually, it's quite nice. I might keep this one."

He smiled at her cheekily and then offered her the bean anyway. "Thanks," she said as she took it.

"Least I could do," he said, resting his head on his hand and regarding her through the ends of his hair.

"Least you could do?" she said, for some reason suspecting that it had nothing to do with him sampling her beans to make sure there were no nasty surprises.

"Hmm," he said. "Sirius seems to think I probably should have said more, been a bit more open about things, maybe. He gave me a bit of a telling off this morning, actually."

"A telling off? What did he say?"

"I believe his exact words were: 'if you blow this by being your normal cagey bastard self, I'll kick your arse to hell and back'."

"Oh," she said. She tried to suppress her laughter, but it escaped anyway.

"I thought it was a bit rich, to be honest," Remus said, rather playfully affronted, "since it's his fault I have a normal cagey bastard self at all."

"How come?"

Remus chuckled quietly to himself and reached for his wine glass, taking a sip and then setting it back down on the ground. "Well," he said, "when Sirius and James found out about me, they asked me some pretty interesting things – things I had no answer for."

"Let me guess," Tonks said, rolling her eyes at the thought. "Sirius wanted to know about werewolf sex."

"However did you know?" Remus said, grinning until the corners of his eyes crinkled.

Tonks smiled back and then bit her lip. Although it would never have occurred to her to ask, now the topic of werewolf sex had been raised, she couldn't help but be a little curious. She took a sip of her wine, knowing that she would probably never be quite brave, or drunk, enough to ask the question outright. "What did you tell him?" she said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing as spectacularly as Molly had done earlier.

"I didn't know what to tell him," Remus said. "I was twelve. I had barely an idea what sex was, let alone how to do it – it had never even occurred to me that I might do it differently or have any of the urges he was suggesting I might. Panicked me quite a bit, actually."

Tonks chuckled quietly into her wine glass at the adorable playful worried expression Remus was wearing, imagining him twelve years old and utterly flustered by Sirius. "What did you do?"

"I spent ages scouring the library trying to find some kind of information on the subject," Remus said. He tilted his head towards her and raised an eyebrow, and his hair fell into his eyes. "It's probably no surprise to you to learn that the Hogwarts catalogue, expansive as it is, does not contain a volume entitled 'A Teenage Werewolf's Guide to Sex'."

Tonks laughed, resting her head on her hand and biting her lip at the thought. "Maybe you should write it," she said.

"What makes you think I know anything about sex that's worth committing to paper?" he said, eying her with rather flirtatious mischief and raising an eyebrow.

She looked away, trying not to give in to the schoolgirl giggle she was on the very verge of, and desperately trying to stem the flow of fluttering sensations through her body so she could get a word out. "So what did you do?" she said, grabbing another bean out of the packet and deciding that a gentle steer away from the topic was the best thing all round if she wasn't going to dissolve into a hysterically giggling puddle on the carpet.

"The only thing I could think of," he said, reaching for a bean himself. "When I went home that summer I asked my dad about it."

Tonks' eyebrows darted up in surprise. "What happened?"

"He choked on his tea," Remus said, swallowing, grinning sheepishly at the thought. "I thought I'd killed him. I panicked and shouted for mum to come and help him, but by the time she got there he was fine. Then, of course, she wanted to know what all the fuss was about, and I had to tell her – which was absolutely the last thing in the world I wanted to do."

Tonks swallowed her baked bean-flavour bean before reaching for another, unable to keep her grin at the thought of his predicament to herself. "And?"

"I think they were a bit shocked," he said. "My mum demanded to know if I was asking because I had a girlfriend, and when I told her I was just asking theoretically she calmed down a bit. They sat me down and told me all about it," he said. "They'd been writing to a werewolf – a fully grown one – for a while, and apparently the topic had come up, and they assured me that I'd be perfectly normal in that respect, except that I might be slightly more interested in girls before the full moon than after. It was the most excruciatingly embarrassing afternoon of my life."

"I'll bet," she said, chewing her celery-flavoured bean – which did not go at all well with the baked bean flavoured one – quickly. Remus picked up the bag and delved inside, peering into its depths. "And are you?"

Remus looked up from the bag. "Am I what?"

"Slightly more interested in girls before the full moon than after?"

"That would be a rather large understatement," he said. "Right now, if you took all of your clothes off and dragged me into the bedroom I'd barely raise an eyebrow. The day before the full moon you'd barely have to wink at me to have me hot and bothered and picturing doing all kinds of things."

Tonks frowned. "But I saw you the day before the full moon," she said.

"Indeed," he said, with an almost silent snigger as he went back to ferreting around in the bag for a suitable candidate.

Tonks felt her mouth form into an 'oh' it didn't feel the need to fully utter as everything suddenly slotted into place. It all made sense: his slight unease in her presence after the meeting, the fact that he wasn't overly concerned about her swapping shifts with Bill, the way he had seemed unnaturally flustered and just a little bit red in the face. "What kind of things are we talking about you picturing?" she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice and failing quite dramatically.

"The kind of things I wouldn't want Molly Weasley to see in my mind," he said distractedly, staring fixedly at the bag as if he was in deep thought about something, even though she knew he couldn't possibly be when he was just trying to pick a bean.

"Oh," she said, smirking. His eyes flashed to hers briefly, and registering her – she supposed – amusement, he looked away again, his cheeks turning just a little bit pinker than usual, and she couldn't keep her laughter internal. "Well don't hold out on me," she said, poking him on the arm. "Fess up."

"I'd really rather not say," he said, his eyes everywhere but hers.

"If you're thinking about me," she said, "I think I've got a right to know."

He still refused to meet her eye, and her urge to tease him was overtaken by a rather worrying thought. "You are, aren't you? Thinking about me?"

"Maybe," Remus said, shifting a little uneasily.

"You better be."

Remus smirked at her answer, and glanced back up, the mischievous glimmer in his eyes suggesting he was well and truly over his embarrassment. "Use your imagination," he said, tossing the bean he'd finally selected into his mouth and handing her the bag. "It's entirely your own fault, anyway."

"I don't remember winking at you," she said, with entirely playful challenge. He raised an eyebrow, evidently not shirking her gauntlet.

"Do you remember showing up for the meeting in that ridiculously tiny red T shirt?"

Tonks bit her lip, trying to banish the blush she could feel forming low down in her stomach that was bound to spread upwards. "It's not _ridiculously_ tiny," she said, even though she knew it exposed a touch more stomach than perhaps was necessary.

And was possibly a touch on the tight side, owing to a slight miscalculation with a washing charm.

Actually, now she came to think about it, she could see how Remus might have found a short, overly tight, red T shirt with a question mark on the front a little bit on the provocative side. She tried to swallow her smirk.

"I beg to differ," Remus said, raising his eyebrow higher. Then he looked away with rather false sheepishness. "The lollipop didn't help," he said, glancing back briefly, with a look on his face that said he wondered if he was pushing his luck.

"I was just eating it!" she said as indignantly as she could manage through a blatant grin.

"You were not," he said. He held her gaze, and the briefest flash of blatant flirtation passed through his eyes. "You were showing it the time of its life. In fact, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for the longest cold shower I have ever had the pleasure of enduring. I was honestly expecting to wake up with hypothermia."

Tonks covered her mouth with her hand and sniggered into her fingers, giving him a playful slap on the arm with her other hand, even though she very much liked the idea of having so easily gotten him hot and bothered. Remus bit his lip but was unable to keep from laughing, and soon his whole body was shaking with it.

She waited until his amusement had subsided, and then edged a bit closer, peering up at him through her eyelashes. "So you're completely disinterested now the full moon's out of the way, then?" she said, in the best purring tone she could muster. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Not completely," he said slowly. He inched closer, letting his fingers drift up her arm, and toyed with the ends of her hair for a moment. "I mean it _is_ you," he murmured, and she barely had time to register the clench in her stomach his words had produced before he touched his lips to hers and gave her insides a new and exciting reason to scrunch up.

He kissed her slowly, teasingly, savouring the sensation of her lips responding and driving her near crazy in the process. She abandoned the bag of beans she had been holding in favour of reaching for his face and holding him exactly where he was, just in case he had any thoughts about pulling away before they'd had a chance to do this properly. But she need not have worried, because pulling away seemed to be the last thing on his mind, and as she pressed closer, inviting him to deepen the kiss if he wanted, he did.

And it was blissful.

For all of Remus' supposed post-full moon disinterest, his kiss was intense enough to make her toes curl and her insides do things she thought they probably hadn't been designed for.

She felt his fingers on her chin and they tilted her face a little more towards his, pressing their mouths more firmly together, and as his lips parted and his tongue flickered across her lips, she let out the faintest of whimpers. She wondered how, after all this time and all the kisses they'd shared, the sensation could still send the same shivers of excitement through her body that their first proper kiss had, how the simplest of touches from him had her body responding so enthusiastically.

And enthusiastically was definitely the word. Her lips craved his, mumbling their protest if he moved away for a second to kiss her chin, her cheek, anywhere else, and her insides gave up their usual fluttering and went straight for an outright ache for more. Her heart beat its support for that idea on the inside of her chest so vigorously and ferociously that she was surprised he – and indeed the neighbours – couldn't hear it.

He pulled her closer and slowly lowered them both back onto the floor, wrapping his arms around her as she settled on top of him. She was grateful for their new position since she wasn't entirely sure, if he kept kissing her like that, how long she could have stayed upright anyway. Even lying down he made her feel distinctly weak at the knees, but she suspected that might have had something, if not everything, to do with having her body pressed against his and his hands skirting over her. His lips grew more insistent, and she managed to free a hand and work it into his hair and then tease the side of his face with her fingertips, and as his fingers roamed up and down her spine, easing her closer, moving her against him, she felt as if she was dissolving into nothing but sensation, delightful, thrilling, tingling sensation.

She loved being this close to him. He made her feel as if there was nothing in the world but her; a thought which did nothing to lessen the weakness of her knees and everything to increase the appreciatively rapid beating of her heart. She couldn't resist a couple of desperately hungry kisses on his neck, revelling in his soft, warm skin beneath her lips and tasting it, just a little bit. He didn't really seem to mind, at least if the little murmurs he was emitting as he shifted to allow her better access were anything to go by.

She continued down towards the collar of his shirt, thinking that pinning Remus to floors was fast approaching becoming her new favourite pastime, and then a thought, completely unbidden, popped into her mind.

She remembered what Sirius had said about not meaning by 'affectionate' that she should pin Remus to the floor and stick her tongue down his throat.

Tonks couldn't resist her lips' upward curve into a smile against Remus' skin, and then a breathy laugh. Remus shifted a little, moving back, and peered at her with adorable confusion from underneath his fringe. "What?" he whispered, pushing her hair back from her face.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just thinking about something Sirius said."

"And what, pray tell, would that be?" he asked, eying her with entirely mock-suspicion.

"Nothing," she said, laughing. He raised his eyebrow at her.

"Then why are you laughing?"

She rolled her eyes and bit her lip, knowing that she didn't really have the mental faculties at the moment to worm her way out of it. "When we talked," Tonks said, "Sirius said you might like it if I was affectionate."

"Oh well I can't deny that," he said. He lifted his head a little and his lips hovered just below hers, so close she could feel his breath. "I do like it when you're affectionate."

Remus captured her lips again briefly, and then his grip tightened on her waist, and he rolled her onto her back. He took a moment to carefully settle against her and then kissed her again, making her take a sharp inward breath against his mouth at his immediate fervour. He slid his fingers into her hair and toyed with her ear for a moment, and then shifted more completely on top of her, kissing her chin before returning to her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and idly wondered if this was what he was like after the full moon when he was apparently less interested in girls, what doing this before the full moon would have been like. Great as Molly's thank you lasagne had been, as Remus' hands traced up and down her sides and over her hips, igniting her skin even through her layers of clothes, she wished she hadn't swapped shifts with Bill.

She felt as if they were lost to the kiss for days, and very pleasantly lost at that, but eventually Remus' kisses became less hurried and urgent, leaving her with a desperate longing for more. He slowly pulled away and grinned at her, stroking the side of her face lightly. He leaned back in to kiss her softly again, just once, and then rolled onto his back, letting her settle in the crook of his neck, curling his arm around her.

Tonks took a couple of deep, delicious, Remus-scented breaths, revelling in the soft brown jumper beneath her cheek and the warmth his body was giving off, and feeling not a little bit bewildered about why they weren't still kissing. She wondered why he did it, why he always pulled away, when she hadn't given him any indication that she was in any way uncomfortable with what he was doing or where things were going, if it, maybe, didn't have something to do with what they'd been talking about all evening. She didn't mind his gentlemanly tendencies – on the contrary, the fact that he'd never done anything even remotely too forward was one of the reasons she trusted him so completely – but she didn't want him being gentlemanly for the wrong reasons. And now seemed as good a time as any to broach the subject, since she thought she was actually getting quite good at subject broaching. "Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Of course," he said, trailing his fingers up and down her arm.

Tonks frowned against his collar, wondering how to phrase the question. "How long are you going to keep it up?" she said, and Remus' chest shook with laughter.

"That's a rather personal question, Tonks," he said, and she blushed when she realised what she'd said. "Long enough, I'd hope," he added indignantly, pressing his lips firmly together in a largely futile attempt to keep from laughing.

She buried herself into his shoulder as her face heated. "Well that's good to know," she said, sniggering. He laughed for a moment and then raised his head a little, gently lifting hers off his shoulder with his free hand so he could look at her properly.

"I take it that's not quite what you meant?" he said, tilting his face down and looking up at her through his fringe with sparkling eyes.

"No," she said, avoiding his gaze as her insides shrank with embarrassment. "Not exactly." She took a quick breath in the hope that it would steady her nerves. It didn't, but she just decided to say it anyway, because this was Remus, and he wouldn't think, she hoped, that it was a strange thing for her to ask, or make any assumptions based on what she said. "I meant – well I meant this gentlemanly thing."

She peered up at him in time to see his eyebrows dart up in surprise. "Oh," he said, eying the ceiling briefly and then looking at her. "Would you prefer that I didn't?"

"No," she said. She settled back on his shoulder and felt him drop his head back, turning a little so he could rest his cheek against her forehead. "Just – the other night," she said. She took a breath and then smiled up at him. "You didn't have to leave, you know."

Remus hummed vaguely, and she wasn't sure if he was agreeing or just pondering the thought. She shifted a little closer, and he lifted his hand to her face and gently moved her hair off her cheek. "Please don't think I didn't want to stay," he murmured, tucking a strand behind her ear.

"You don't want to rush into anything?" she said, moving away far enough to look at him.

"Believe me," he said, glancing up and letting out a slight huff of amusement, "I would love to rush into things – everything with you, but…."

"But what?"

Remus pressed his lips together. "I haven't done this before," he said.

It was the very last thing she expected.

"What?" she said. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending, and he smiled slightly. His fingertips traced down her hairline, lingering on her cheek, and in spite of everything else, her skin tingled beneath his touch.

"I haven't done this before," he said quietly, "with someone who knows."

"Oh," she said slowly.

Remus looked back up at the ceiling. "Ashamed as I am to admit it, every relationship I've had in the past has been based on lies." He met her eye rather reluctantly, and there was uncertainty about what he was saying written right across his features. "At this point normally, I'd be panicking about what stories I was going to tell to cover the fact that I needed to go away again in a couple of weeks, worrying about being found out and feeling hopelessly guilty – and I'm not proud of it, but without having that to fall back on I just – well, it's new territory," he said. "It takes a bit of getting used to."

"Right," she said, smiling slightly.

She hadn't really thought of any of this from his point of view, that he might need a while to adjust to having someone know about him and want to be with him anyway. She'd assumed, she supposed, that having had his friends and people in the Order stand by him and accept him that he'd be used to it – not expect it, perhaps, but be used to it. It was a bit of a surprise, really, that she was the only girl he'd ever had The Werewolf Conversation with, but she couldn't deny that the thought of her being the only one gave her a little thrill. She settled back on his shoulder, coiling her arm around his waist.

"I mean this must be new for you too," he said, lightly running his fingers over her arm. "You've never had to worry about planning things around the moon, or deal with any of that pesky werewolf etiquette before. Unless, that is, you're secretly a werewolf groupie and haven't told me?"

"Werewolf groupie?" she said, and his lips twitched in amusement.

"Although I've never met one," he said, "apparently, there are girls who like the idea of going out with a werewolf just because he's a werewolf."

"Really?" she said. "Why?"

Remus looked down, chuckling slightly. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe they like the element of danger – or they think we've got some sexy animal magnetism thing going on," he said. He gestured to himself with a vague wave. "Of course that's clearly bollocks."

Tonks laughed, hugging him closer as she collapsed against him. She wondered if she should tell him that she did think he had some sexy thing going on, she just wasn't sure it had anything to do with animal magnetism. She thought it was probably entirely to do with him. Remus magnetism, or something.

His arm tightened around her and he nuzzled her temple. "You've been very nice about this, you know," he said, placing a gentle kiss where his lips lingered. "I know it can't be easy. I daresay you've never had to worry about whether it's bad manners to ruffle your boyfriend's fur before."

Tonks' heart gave a rather spectacular flutter in approval of his use of the word 'boyfriend', and it must have shown, because Remus peered at her inquiringly. "What?" he said.

"Nothing," she said, trying to keep the fact that her insides were squirming with delight out of her voice, "just – you said you were my boyfriend."

"Yes," he said, his forehead dipping slightly in puzzlement. "I mean, I am, aren't I?"

Remus swallowed and his brow creased slightly, his eyes suddenly alive with worry. "I mean if you don't want – "

"No, I do," she said. "Just – you hadn't said that before."

"Oh." Remus let out a soft, relieved sigh, and then rolled his eyes slightly at himself. "Well," he said, "since I appear to be going all out here…."

He trailed off and looked around the room a little uncertainly before meeting her eye again. She'd only seen the particular apprehensive expression he was wearing once before – the night he'd asked her out – as if half of him wanted to say something he thought was important, and the rest was wrestling to stifle the impulse. "I just think a bit of time to get used to this might not be a bad idea," he said. "For you too."

"For me?"

"Hmm," he said, and then swallowed, and when he continued, his voice was low and quiet. "I'd hate for you to do something in the heat of the moment that you'd regret later – in the morning."

Tonks lifted her head to look at him properly, frowning a little that he would even think that she might have regrets about anything they did. "What makes you think I would?" she said.

"Just – " Remus frowned and looked down before his eyes swung back to hers, giving her the impression that he was about to say whatever it was with utmost reluctance. "I wouldn't want you to wake up and suddenly realise you'd slept with a dark creature," he said.

"What? You know I don't think of you – " He cut her off by putting his hand lightly on her arm.

"But I am."

"I know," she said, wondering how to phrase what she was thinking.

Of course she knew he was a werewolf and that werewolves were considered dark creatures, but Remus was so much more than what he turned into every full moon. "But – what I mean is, I've known since we met, more or less, and it doesn't bother me – it never has. If it did," she said, "do you think I would have said yes when you asked me out? Or do you think I would have kissed you? Or be lying here with you now? It's not going to come as some big surprise that you're a werewolf just because I wake up next to you. I have thought about this. I have thought it through."

He looked down, a soft amused noise escaping his lips. He pressed them together and then met her eye, his mouth hitching into a half-smile that seemed a touch on the timid side. "It's just – I need to be sure you're sure."

"Have I not been convincing enough so far?" she said. "Because, you know, I could work on that – " She shifted a little to give herself better access to his neck and placed a couple of long, teasing kisses to his skin. She watched his face closely for a reaction, and as she moved up to his ear she swore he took a tiny, gasping breath. He bit his lip, and seeing the effect she was having on him sent the pleasantest of shivers through her.

"Like I said," he said, letting out a rather contented sigh as she nibbled his earlobe. "It's just going to take a bit of getting used to."

"Ok," she said softly. She nestled back into the crook of his neck and let her hand wander down his chest and stroke lazy circles on his stomach.

"And I'm not talking about ages – just a little while," he said and she nodded and shifted slightly to kiss his neck again, since he really did seem to like that, and she couldn't claim to be completely indifferent herself. "I'm very good at adapting to change. In fact," he murmured, "if you keep doing that we may well be talking minutes."

He turned his face to hers and kissed her with a soft intensity that she was sure would have buckled her knees, had they not already have turned to jelly. "And I swear I sent a memo about whether or not I was permitted to use the word 'boyfriend'," he said, mumbling the words against her lips. "Are you sure you didn't get it?"

She composed a witty reply, but his kisses made her forget what it was.

After a couple of extremely long and very in depth kisses, Tonks snuggled into Remus and played with the hair at his neck. "How come you never told any other girls?" she said and he shifted to face her, curling up next to her and using his folded arm as a pillow. He rested his hand lightly on her waist, stroking faint circles against the skin he'd somehow managed to expose without her noticing. Not that she minded.

"I came close, once," he said, offering her a rather tight smile.

"Only once?"

"Hmm," he murmured. "When it came to it, though, I didn't quite have the nerve, and I ended up breaking up with her instead."

She pondered vaguely which of the list of girls he'd furnished her with it was, but there seemed a much more pressing question to be asked. "Did you not think she'd still want to be with you if you told her the truth?"

"It wasn't that," he said quietly, running his fingers gingerly over her stomach and making her tingle in the wake of his touch. "I think she probably would have been fine with me being a werewolf, but I'd lied to her for a long time, and I – well, I didn't really want to admit it."

"Oh," she said.

"I think I – well, at the time, I thought, maybe, it was better to let her go believing that I was just a git than knowing I was a coward and a liar, on top of being a werewolf."

He eyed her warily until she snuggled closer, and he took the opportunity to curl her into his chest. They stayed like that for a while, with her listening to the steady beat of his heart and enjoying the soft tickle of his jumper underneath her skin. "You must think I'm awful," he said quietly, and she looked up.

"Of course I don't," she said, rather astounded that he would think any such thing.

"No?"

"No," she said emphatically, and just to make sure he understood, she kissed him, taking his face in her hand and leaving him with a quite adorable dazzled expression. "It's not easy," she said, resting her head on his elbow, "trying to tell people things you know they're not going to want to hear." She rolled her eyes. "Only in my case it's more likely to be 'yes, I _could_ morph to look like Celestina Warbeck, but I'm not going to, just so you can pretend to shag her'."

Remus seemed torn between the impulse to look appalled and to laugh, and in the end did a little of both. "Do people – men – do they really ask you to do things like that?" he said, and the look of utter dismay on his face made her heart leap. She supposed that if it would never occur to him to ask something like that, he wouldn't be able to imagine why anyone else would. And that was cause for glorious and enthusiastic heart-leaping.

"Sometimes," she said, shrugging. "They only normally risk it once, though. After I've turned their balls into tomatoes and threatened to puree them, strangely, it tends not to come up again." Remus sniggered for a moment, and then his face dissolved into a shrewd, rather sad, smile.

"I'm surprised you haven't given up on us altogether," he said, and she ran her fingers through the hair at his temple.

"Kind of glad I didn't," she said, biting her lip against the grin that was threatening to erupt.

"Me too," he said, seemingly battling a similar impulse.

He leant forward and kissed her, making her very, very glad indeed that she hadn't given up on men, and he eased his elbow out from underneath her as she shifted onto her back so that they could do it properly. Her stomach tingled, and his fingers flickered lightly over her skin, seeming to find the place his lips were creating the biggest tingles and only intensifying them, and when he pulled away, she was glad he didn't want her to say anything, because she wasn't entirely sure she would have been able to form any words.

Remus rested his head on her shoulder and curled into her side, his fingers still flickering over her stomach, and she couldn't help thinking how nice it was to have him resting on her for a change. "You know," he said softly, "I'm going to get my own back for this."

"For what?" she said, smiling down at him as she toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"All this deep and meaningful werewolf stuff," he said. "I'll have you know I've been formulating some very probing questions about you being a Metamorphmagus."

"Have you now?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him in interest.

"Oh yes," he said.

"I'll give you ten galleons if you can come up with something I haven't heard before."

"All right," he said. He pursed his lips in thought for a moment. "What colour are your insides?"

"What?" she said, letting out a startled giggle. She really hadn't expected him to come up with anything.

"I was wondering," he said. His face lit up with boyish inquisitiveness and she had to bite her lip to stop from grinning like an idiot at him. "If you wanted to, say, make your liver purple with pink spots, or your intestines bright green, could you do it?"

"How would I tell?" she said.

"Oh that's a good point," he said, his eyebrows dropping in disappointment. "I never think these things all the way through," he added ruefully, and she laughed. "Do I win anyway?" he said, snuggling closer, lightly kissing her neck.

"I suppose," she said, although with his lips finding all the most sensitive spots on her throat, it was hard to form particularly coherent thoughts, let alone shape them into sentences with real words in them.

"You suppose?"

"Hmm. I was expecting you to go for something more along the lines of 'Tonks, are those your real boobs?'"

"As if I would be that predictable," he murmured against her skin. He nestled back on her shoulder, letting his hand drift lower on her stomach and tickling her slightly as his fingers moved in gradually decreasing circles towards the low waist of her jeans.

"I like you after the full moon," she said on impulse. "You're – I don't know – docile."

Remus rolled his eyes. "A word every man longs to be described as," he said.

"Sorry," she said, tittering quietly into his hair. "I just mean you seem – I don't know, calm. Relaxed."

"I am," he said, quietly. "The full moon is as far away as it's ever going to get."

She kissed him lightly on the forehead and he smiled, and then rolled onto his back, extending his arm across the carpet in invitation. She snuggled into his side and he draped his arm around her, and she ran her fingers lightly over his stomach, slowly moving round to his side, and, finding a spot where his shirt had come untucked, she slipped her hand inside, helping the rest along. His skin was warm and soft and inviting, and she couldn't resist trailing her fingers across it, and then flattening her palm against his stomach to feel more at once. She liked the feel of him. There was something quite solid and comforting about him, but tracing his contours sent shivers of excitement through her, and she really couldn't wait to get her hands on the rest of him. She traced the outline of his bellybutton and then up as far as the start of his ribs, before moving lower, and as she explored, a thought occurred to her. "I know I said no more questions," she said, "but…."

"It's all right," he said, turning a little and kissing her temple. "You can ask me anything, as long as you don't want me to impersonate Celestina Warbeck, because the high notes are really quite beyond me." She chuckled softly, running her fingers across his stomach in a lazy figure of eight.

"They don't heal completely, do they, werewolf bites?" she said.

"No," he said.

"So I suppose you must have – "

"A scar?" he supplied, saving her the trouble of saying the word.

"Hmm."

"Yes."

"Where is it?" she asked quietly.

For a moment she wondered if that wasn't a rather personal thing to ask, but Remus didn't seem to mind. He placed his hand gently over hers on his stomach, and slowly drew them both up over his jumper to his shoulder, settling their hands just above his collarbone. "There," he said softly.

"Does it hurt?"

"Tingles a bit sometimes, being cursed and everything," he said.

"But I wouldn't hurt you if I touched it?"

"When – " he said, and then stopped himself, giving in to a sheepish grin. "I mean _if_ we do anything involving taking our clothes off – " Tonks' stomach flipped over. She rather liked his unintentional 'when' in that context. " – no, it won't hurt if you touch it."

"Ok," she said.

"So your hands are free to wander wherever they like," he said, smiling at her with a flirtatious sparkle in his eyes.

"Good," she said. "They will be pleased."

Remus let his hand fall away from hers and shot her an inquiring glance. "I could – I mean normally, if I was with a girl, I'd do a spell to cover it, avoid awkward questions – you wouldn't be able to feel it, let alone see it – but since you know…." He trailed off. "It's up to you," he said. "I mean it's a bit gruesome – "

Tonks suddenly had a very good idea. "Show me."

"What?" Remus' eyebrows shot up, and Tonks twitched hers at him encouragingly in reply.

"Show me," she said. "I'm sure it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is."

Remus looked down at his chest, and then glanced up questioningly, and, meeting her unflinching gaze, he let out an amused huff of acquiescence and reached for his top button. He slowly undid that one, and then the next, and eased the fabric of that and his jumper aside so she could see his shoulder. It really wasn't that bad – she could see short, pale furrows in his flesh that she suspected could well be teeth marks, and some of the skin was whiter than the rest and a little twisted, but she actually thought that if she hadn't known there was a something there to see, there was every chance she wouldn't even have noticed.

Even though she'd told him to show her, she'd been a bit worried that if it really was gruesome, the fact that she thought so would be written all over her face, but as she peered at his skin, all she could really muster was a vaguely baffled brow furrow. "Is that it?" she said, and he laughed and let his shirt fall back.

"I could conjure a more impressive one, if you'd like."

Tonks giggled and sat up, starting to roll up her sleeve. Remus propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her, rather puzzled. She tried not to be too distracted by the glimpse of his chest his open buttons were revealing. "What are you doing?" he said. He reached for the wine glass he'd abandoned some time ago and took a sip, peering at her over the top.

"Well since you've shown me yours I thought I'd better show you mine," she said.

"What?"

"Well fair's fair."

Remus' face was an adorable mixture of perplexed and intrigued as Tonks slowly rolled up her sleeve to just past her elbow, and then un-morphed the bit in question. "There," she said, holding her elbow out to him for inspection. Remus blinked and then set down his glass and lowered his eyes to her skin, scanning her arm, finally fixing on the three bluish-black blobs beneath the skin just below her elbow. "What is that?" he said, running his fingers over them.

"Gravel," she said.

"Gravel?" he said, peering up at her with a rather horrified expression.

"Hmm," she said, battling a grin. "When I was about eight, my Muggle Nan was looking after me – and I wasn't supposed to do any magic or anything in front of her, but I was bored and so I went for a little broom ride." She rolled her eyes at him. "And of course I fell off, skidded right along the pavement, and I'd been going quite fast, so it was – well, it was an impressive scrape. Bled everywhere. She went completely nuts and insisted on taking me to a Muggle Healer – and he wanted to pick the gravel out with these tweazles – "

"Tweezers?" Remus said, smiling with gentle amusement at her mistake.

"That's it," she said. "But I didn't really fancy that, so I morphed to cover them, said they'd fallen out, and because he couldn't see them any more he believed me, stuck a bandage on me and sent me home. I thought I might be able to find a spell to get rid of them when I got back to mum and dad's, but there wasn't anything in any of mum's books I thought I could pull off, and I didn't want to tell mum and get her to do it, because then I'd have to own up to riding my broom when I was supposed to be being good _and_ lying to a Muggle Healer, so I was just kind of stuck with them."

"Can you feel them?" he asked. Tonks poked them experimentally.

"Nah," she said. Remus sniggered.

"That's disgusting," he said, his chest shaking with amusement.

"I know," she said, sounding rather more pleased with herself than she intended. She leaned towards him until they were nose to nose and raised an eyebrow at him. "So," she said quietly, "you don't have to hide from me."

She thought Remus was about to break into a broad grin, but she barely let it form before she covered his lips with hers. When he pulled away and met her eye, his expression was rather awed. "You're – I – " He swallowed, and she smiled. She rather liked making him incoherent. "I know I don't – I'm not – " He rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm quite taken with you, you know," he said.

"Only quite?"

Remus chuckled quietly to himself. "Well I wouldn't want you to get a big head," he said, catching her chin and gently bringing her face closer to kiss her, and when he slowly leant back, cradling her against his chest, she was grateful for the opportunity to collapse against him, amongst other things, like the word 'taken', which for some reason set her insides ablaze.

It was a delectable kiss, and after a while she settled against his shoulder, murmuring happily. She watched the rise and fall of Remus' chest for a while, tracing faint patterns on his side. It had been an odd kind of evening, she thought. She'd learned a lot of things she didn't even know there were to learn, a lot of things she really hadn't expected, but nothing that changed how she felt about him.

It had been odd, but nice.

She snuggled closer, revelling in the warmth of his body, and how he held her close, and thinking how much she liked just being with Remus. Normally doing something as girly as snuggling up with someone made her feel restless, agitated, somehow, keen to be back in her own personal space, but there was something very nice about doing this with Remus. Maybe their bodies just fitted more neatly like this than hers had with anybody else, or maybe he was just better at it, or maybe it meant…. She let her thoughts drift off and toyed with a loose thread on his jumper.

When Tonks had to stifle a yawn and battle her dropping eyelids, she glanced at her watch. "It's getting late," she said. She wondered if she should ask Remus if he wanted to stay. She didn't want him to feel like she hadn't listened to what he'd said about needing time to get his head round the idea of her wanting to be with him, but it seemed silly to move when they were both so comfy.

So comfy, in fact, that it was a couple of minutes before she realised that he hadn't responded. "Remus?" she said. He didn't answer. "Remus?"

She shifted a little and looked up at him. He was fast asleep. She stifled a laugh with her fingers. "Remus?" she said again quietly, not entirely sure whether she wanted him to wake up or not.

He looked adorable – as she'd always suspected he might – so relaxed and peaceful that she couldn't bear to wake him. Curled up next to her, he looked quite small and fragile, even though she knew he was neither, and the faintest trace of a smile played on his lips. She wondered if he was dreaming.

For a moment she speculated about whether she should try and move him, levitate him to the sofa or even her bed, but she didn't want him to wake up and find himself hovering in mid-air, and she thought there was every chance she'd catch his head on the doorframe if she tried. Besides, he looked pretty contented where he was.

She watched him sleep for a while, thinking that to have fallen asleep he must be pretty fond of doing this with her too, pretty comfortable in her presence, and allowed herself a small flutter at the thought before she summoned a blanket from the bedroom and carefully unfurled it over them both. She extinguished the lights and then slowly settled back next to him, pulling the blanket right up to his chin and telling herself she was only doing it because she didn't want him to be cold. On impulse she delicately lifted his arm and rested it on her waist, and lay, listening to his steady breathing and enjoying the warm, comforting heat his body was giving off. Before she knew what was happening, her eyes were drifting down, and this time she did nothing to arrest their fall.

"Ah!"

Through the drowsy haze of sleep, Tonks was vaguely aware that something was moving. She stirred, eyes flickering almost open and half-functioning brain assessing the evidence. It quickly came to the conclusion that yes, she had fallen asleep on the floor with Remus, and from the way he was muttering under his breath, she thought there was a chance he was clutching a crick in his neck. She murmured something sympathetic, groping for the blanket that had bunched somewhere around her waist, and felt his hand come to rest on her arm. "Sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

She murmured something about being awake now anyway, shifting back against him, and he gently moved her hair away from the back of her neck and placed warm kisses against her skin, rendering any desire for a blanket for extra warmth utterly unnecessary. "What time is it?" she muttered, rather distractedly. There was a pause and Remus, presumably, checked his watch.

"Nearly seven," he said. "What time do you have to be at work?"

"Half eight."

"Oh," he whispered. "In that case…."

He returned to kissing her neck, making his way slowly down towards her shoulder and then back up again to her ear, and she could feel him smiling against her skin. "Are you going to wake me up like this every morning?" she said, and he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, nuzzling into her hair.

"Only when I have something to apologise for," he murmured. "I'm sorry I fell asleep on you. I didn't mean to."

"S'alright."

She couldn't say she really minded, especially if this was how he was going to make it up to her. She rolled over to face him, and through the hazy blue darkness of the room she could just make out Remus smiling at her sheepishly from underneath some not inconsiderably messed up hair. With the top of his shirt still unbuttoned and carpet fluff stuck to his jumper he look positively dishevelled, but she thought he'd never looked sexier. "Hello," he said, voice low and hoarse and just a bit sleepy. While she was still revelling in the sexiness of _that_, he tilted his head towards her and softly kissed her jaw, making his way towards her mouth.

"I probably have early morning breath," she said, thinking that, unappealing as it made her sound, it was probably only fair to warn him.

"I don't care," he murmured before capturing her lips with his. He kissed her rather more sexily than she'd thought was possible at this ungodly hour of the morning, and his stubble prickled her skin, but she couldn't deny it was a very nice way to wake up, and a damn sight better than her usual tussle with an alarm.

"You seem – what's the word?" she said as he moved away, propping himself up on his elbows. "Friskier, this morning."

"Well," he said, twitching his eyebrows at her, "waking up with a beautiful girl in his arms does tend to do that to a man."

"Oh I'm sure I'm a picture," she said, experimentally reaching up to her hair to assess its post-slumber bird-nestiness.

Remus smiled knowingly at her for a moment, and then looked away. "I'm too old to sleep on the floor," he said, rubbing his neck. Tonks watched his long fingers working at the muscles in his neck, and that, coupled with how adorable he looked first thing in the morning ignited something inside her. She really couldn't resist him any longer. She sat up and crawled towards him, sliding onto his lap, and steadying herself on his shoulders. "What are you doing?" he said, although his amused tone and the way one of his hands was settling on her hip suggested he had a pretty good idea. She shifted closer and ducked her head, lowering her lips to linger on the spot he'd just been rubbing.

"Kissing it better," she murmured.

Remus mumbled something that sounded like it might have started out as a vaguely surprised, but not displeased, 'oh', and she trailed her lips over his neck, not sure if it was her intention to be soothing or something else entirely. She slid her hands inside the neck of his shirt, lightly caressing his skin, and then dropped them to his waist so that her lips could make the most of the opportunity to taste hitherto unexplored areas, sampling the skin on his shoulder before moving to trace along his collarbone and round to the other side.

Remus slowly sat up and his hands moved around to the small of her back, pulling her closer as he mumbled something else. This time she hadn't the vaguest idea what it was, either because having him trapped beneath her and entirely at her mercy was too intoxicating, or he was being utterly incoherent, she couldn't tell which. She nibbled at his neck, and her insides shivered, loving the way his head dropped against her shoulder and his fingers tightened on her back in response. He pulled her to him, his fingers giving her delightful spine-tingles as they slid up her back, and she pressed her lips a little harder into the muscles on his neck, her insides aching as he let out a throaty sigh that was precariously close to being a groan. His fingers abandoned their slow, teasing, progress up her back and tangled themselves in her hair, drawing her away so he could cover her throat with frantic kisses, and his tongue was so warm on her skin that she had to clutch at his jumper to steady herself because her brain was so busy processing dizzying sensations that it couldn't cope with something like keeping her balance as well.

He steered her lips to his, and kissed her so feverishly that she gasped, but even so, she kissed him back with a similar amount of breathless fervour, and it just felt so….

She wasn't sure what had changed, but something had. It was as if they were both in deeper than they had been before, closer, somehow, and how shocked and overjoyed they both were about it was being expertly channelled by their lips as they slid over each other, and their hands as they roamed, and their bodies as they touched and then separated again.

It was….

Her eyelids flickered appreciatively at the way he made her body reel, and she moved a little closer, and as he clutched her tighter his mouth did things to hers that made her feel as if Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Fireworks were going off inside her. She wasn't entirely sure they were the no-heat variety.

Remus leant into her, pressing his body into hers, his fingers performing some kind of magic on her skin as they skirted over her. She wondered if he'd studied this, how she liked to be touched, kissed, and if he had he'd obviously been a very diligent student because everything he did felt fabulous. She ran her hands over his chest and marvelled at how everything about being with Remus felt right. Waking up with him had felt right, and _this_, especially this, felt right.

She wondered if she could really believe what she was feeling, if she should trust it, and the thought that she might scared her a little. But she felt so alive she could have fallen through the floor.

His kisses were utterly compelling, and she wondered if she'd ever be able to get enough.

"Get your lazy arse out of bed!"

The screech of her alarm startled Tonks a little, and Remus even more. He pulled away, eyebrows high on his forehead in surprise, and when she met his eye she noted, even through the early morning semi-darkness, how bright they were. "What on earth was that?" he said.

"It's just my alarm," she said, fumbling in her pocket for her wand to silence it, even though her fingers didn't seem to be working.

"Friendly," he said, pressing his lips back to hers. She quickly abandoned her search for her wand in favour of raking her fingers through his hair.

"I mean it! Shift it!" her alarm screeched, and Remus tittered against her mouth.

"If we ignore it, will it go away?" he murmured against her lips. She shook her head a little without bothering to drag her lips from his.

"Don't make me call you Nymphadora, Nymphadora!" her alarm threatened.

Tonks reached for her wand and silenced the alarm, and then collapsed, laughing, against Remus' shoulder. He took her face in his hands and peppered every inch with kisses between chuckles, and then leant back on his hands. He gazed at her with a rather dreamy expression for a moment, and then smiled. "Morning," he said.

"Morning," she echoed, her voice sounding strangely floaty. He grinned.

"Well, then," he said, reaching for her hand and lifting it to his lips so he could kiss her knuckles, "we'd better get up."

Remus dispatched her to the bathroom to get ready for work and when she returned, feeling slightly less sleep-rumpled but still oddly tingly, she found Remus in the kitchen.

"I made you breakfast," he said, indicating a bowl of cornflakes and a small plate of toast on the counter. "And lunch," he added, a little sheepishly, holding out a foil-wrapped package.

"Remus," she said, grinning. "You didn't have to."

"I was bored," he said. "You were gone for a very long time."

She bit back a protest that it had been, at worst, twenty minutes, and took the package from him and tucked it into her bag. "Thank you," she said, stepping forward and kissing him. He grinned bashfully and looked down.

"Eat your cornflakes," he said, "before they get soggy."

She suppressed the giggle that was bubbling high in her chest, and leant against the work surface and did as she was told, smiling at him as he ate his too. She wondered idly if this is what it would be like if they lived together – shambolic, but nice.

She didn't really want to tear herself away, but eventually she had to, and before too long, kissing Remus a long goodbye a little way away from the Ministry was nothing more than a very happy memory, and she was sitting at her desk in the midst of a paperwork mountain it took her until lunchtime to clear.

When Tonks opened her sandwiches, she found a small folded piece of parchment nestled on top of the bread. She picked it out and slowly unfolded it, recognising Remus' impeccably neat handwriting as soon as the first word appeared.

_Thank you for last night. And this morning. Hope you're having a nice day. xxx _

She grinned to herself for the rest of the afternoon.

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**A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and for doing the same for this one, you get a chance to prove the basic principles of Remus magnetism to a fanfic Remus of your choice, in whatever way you see fit. Diagrams are, of course, optional ;).**

**And while I've got your full (ish) attention, could I have a quick show of hands from anyone who'd be gutted if I upped the rating? Ta.**


	14. The Icing On The Cake

**A/N: Please note I've upped the rating to M. That means there'll be slightly more in the way of adult content from now on – although I am only planning to dip a toe into those M-rated waters. Well, all right, a foot. Actually, I might go in as far as the knee. Anyway, if anyone has any questions about the upped rating, please feel free to PM me, and if not, enjoy…. **

* * *

"That's him."

Tonks and Sirius froze over the cake they were still icing as the front door closed, their wands poised mid-air as they exchanged worried glances. "He's early," Tonks hissed.

"He's Moony," Sirius whispered, rolling his eyes.

Tonks looked around the half-decorated kitchen, taking in the icing on the cake that read 'Happy Birt', the streamers that were distinctly not swinging and the distinctly not laid table. "Hell," she said. "What are we going to do?"

Sirius' eyes darted around the kitchen, and then he shrugged. "Distract him for a bit, and I'll sort everything in here," he said.

"Are you sure you can manage?" Tonks said, peering at him with concern. Sirius raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips in offence that she'd even asked the question, and she offered him a vague apologetic smile, which did little to appease him. "How long do you need?"

"Quarter of an hour?" Sirius said. "I'm sure you'll find _some _way to keep him amused," he added, rolling his eyes dramatically.

Tonks shot Sirius a mock-glare and grabbed her bag, headed up the steps and intercepted Remus in the hall, where he was taking off his coat, brushing the clinging drizzle from it before hanging it on the umbrella stand. He looked up when a floorboard creaked beneath her feet. "Oh. Hello," he whispered, peering at her through the gloom, his eyebrows high on his forehead in surprise. "I didn't think you were coming until later."

"Got off work early," she said quietly. She tried to shrug nonchalantly, as if she hadn't gone into work two hours before everyone else for a head start on her paperwork and called in a couple of favours so she could leave early. Although she wasn't entirely sure why she'd bothered, since all she and Sirius had done with the extra time was argue about whether Remus would prefer royal icing on his birthday cake or butter-cream. Not that – until very recently – either of them had had any idea how to make either….

Tonks bit her lip. She hoped the cake would be all right. She hoped _Sirius_ would be all right, left to his own devices.

Remus ran a hand through his hair and straightened his grey jumper and then smiled at her, stepping closer so he could wrap his arms around her and pull her to him for a kiss. "Oh well that is very good news," he said, as he lowered his lips to hers. Tonks snaked her hands around his waist for something to hold onto as his lips moved over hers and made her feel just a little bit woozy, and then tried to subtly back Remus down the corridor and away from the kitchen door as they kissed. She stopped when Remus made a vague 'oof' noise as she backed him entirely not-subtly into the wall next to the troll-leg umbrella stand. She smothered his protest with her lips, which he didn't seem to entirely mind, and then pulled away slowly, smiling at him apologetically. "What are you really doing here?" Remus said, grinning at her and tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear.

"I thought you might want to get started on your birthday celebrations," she said, returning his grin with a cheeky one of her own. Remus closed his eyes briefly and sighed, letting his head drop back against the wall.

"How did you know?" he said, opening his eyes fixing her with a wry smile as if he already knew the answer.

"Sirius."

"Ah," Remus said, with a quick exasperated eye-roll as he dropped his hands into his pockets and leant heavily against the wall. "Motormouth Black strikes again."

She smiled briefly, hoping that Remus wasn't going to put up anything more than a token protest, and shifted forward a little, pressing her body into his. "Why didn't _you_ tell me it was your birthday?" she said, toying with the hem of his jumper.

"When you've had as many birthdays as I have," he said, raising an eyebrow, "another one isn't anything to celebrate." Tonks rolled her eyes at him, and he let out a short snort of amusement as he relented. He freed his hands from his pockets and stroked her arms gently, making her skin tingle and turn to goosebumps, even though she was wearing a thick, knitted cardigan. "This is a very nice surprise, though," he said, wrapping his arms around her and easing her against him, placing his warm lips on her forehead in a gentle kiss.

"Good," she said quietly, half-heartedly wondering how a chaste kiss on her forehead could turn her knees to jelly. She rested against him for a moment, savouring the warmth of his lips against her skin, not really wanting to move, even though she'd planned to take Remus upstairs to the library and away from the surprise in the kitchen.

Remus' arms tightened around her, and he murmured happily against her skin, and she wondered if he was feeling the same way, as if what he actually wanted for his birthday was to stay like this forever.

A pop and the sound of Sirius cursing loudly on the other side of the kitchen door rather spoiled the moment, though, and Tonks leant back, meeting Remus' inquisitive raised-eyebrow with what she hoped was an innocent expression. She cleared her throat far too late to cover the noise. Remus raised his eyebrow higher, smirking just a little too knowingly as his eyes darted down the corridor to the source of the noise. "Do you want to come upstairs and open your present?" Tonks said, as brightly as she could muster when she was trying desperately not to laugh.

"What was that?" Remus said, indicating the door and the noise beyond it with a jerk of his head.

"Dunno," Tonks said quickly, fully aware that she really wasn't fooling him. "Probably Kreacher doing unnatural things to the family album again, or something."

Remus looked at her _entirely_ too knowingly. "Probably," he said, through a breathy chuckle.

"Do you want to come and open your present, then?" she said, and Remus nodded. She slid her fingers between his, shivering a little as they closed around hers, and lead Remus up the stairs.

Once the library door was closed behind them, Remus threw a spell casually at the fireplace, causing flames to shoot up and dance, and then another at the lights which flickered into life, casting shadows across the books on the shelves and making the whole place look homely and inviting, as only he knew how. "How was your day?" he said over his shoulder as he inspected the fire he'd created with a puzzled frown, apparently feeling it wasn't quite up to scratch.

"Good," she said. "Yours?" Remus turned and leant on the mantelpiece, rolled his eyes and thrust his hands into his pockets. "That bad?" she said.

"Worse," he said, scuffing the carpet with his toe. She raised an eyebrow, indicating that she expected details. "Have you ever been to the place Mundungus Fletcher laughing calls his house?" Remus said, glancing up at her from the patch of carpet he'd been studying.

"No," she said.

"Well should he ever invite you," he said, raising an eyebrow at her, "I suggest you politely decline, unless you want to be picking bits of broken pipe out of your shoes for the rest of your days and actively enjoy the smell of ferrets."

"Ferrets?"

Remus closed his eyes and shuddered in perhaps not entirely mock-horror. "He was intending to sell their livers as potion ingredients," he said. "But apparently the bottom has totally fallen out of the ferret market recently, and – owing to a slight miscalculation he made with their contraceptive charm – they're breeding rather quicker than normal and they've rather taken over the place. He tried to sell me one as a pet."

"Were you tempted?"

"No," Remus said, folding his arms huffily across his chest. "Quite apart from the fact that a randy ferret has never been especially high on my list of worldly desires, one of the little bastards bit me."

Tonks covered her mouth with her hand and laughed into her fingers, and then when Remus shot her a look of playful displeasure, she stepped towards him and tried to mask her amusement with a more sympathetic face. "Where?" she said.

"In the living room," he said, and then his brow creased. "At least, I think that's what it's supposed to be. Dung has a lot of – well, I suppose you'd call it clutter, if you were being charitable." Tonks sniggered.

"I meant where on you," she said.

"Oh," he said, uncrossing his arms and holding out his hand. "There," he said, indicating the side of his index finger. "It was my own fault, apparently. According to Dung, I never should have startled it, which I seemed to do simply by existing."

Desperately trying to keep a straight face, Tonks took Remus' hand and lifted it to her lips, covering the digit in question with gentle kisses. "Better?" she said, and Remus stepped closer, smiling and looking every inch the schoolboy whose mischievous plan had just come off. She let go of his hand in favour of winding her arms around his neck, and his hands – injured and otherwise – found her hips.

"Much," he murmured, and he kissed her, his hands slowly sliding up her body and into her hair, making her feel every bit as warm and fluttery as the flames he'd created in the grate.

"So do you want your present?" Tonks said, mumbling the words against his lips.

"Is this not my present?" he said, cupping her face with one hand as he trailed kisses down her neck. "Because I like it very much."

"If I'd known you were this easily pleased," she said, breathily as his teeth grazed a particularly sensitive spot on her neck, "I wouldn't have bothered fighting my way through Diagon Alley on a Saturday."

Remus pulled away a little, and grinned. "You didn't have to get me anything," he said.

" 'Course I did," she said. "It's your birthday."

Remus' eyes flickered up to the ceiling as if he was thinking about saying something, but he evidently decided against it, and let her lead him over to the desk, where she up-ended her bag, spilling the contents all over the green leather inset and worrying far too late if there was something in there she didn't want Remus to see. He raised an eyebrow at her and then picked up one such item, a hanky with her initials carefully embroidered into one corner, surrounded by intricately stitched pink roses. He held it out in front of him, one corner pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and his eyes switched between her, and it, glittering with barely suppressed amusement.

She snatched it out of his fingers and tossed it onto the desk in annoyance. "It's my damn mother," she said. "She charmed all my bags not to leave the house if I don't have a clean hanky in them and I can't figure out how to break it." Remus sniggered. Tonks tried desperately to ignore him _and_ the flush she could feel on her cheeks, focusing her attention instead on the task in hand. She routed around the spilled contents for the gift. "I didn't really know what to get you," she said. "I talked to Sirius – "

"Let me guess," Remus said, leaning back against the desk. "He said you should buy yourself some sexy underwear and that a strip tease is the gift that keeps on giving – or something equally crass about offering to blow out my candle."

Tonks laughed. He'd got it almost word for word. "Actually it was something about making your tail wag," she said, and Remus let out a short snort of amusement as he folded his arms across his chest.

"Ever the romantic," he said. He paused for just a moment, and then raised an eyebrow at her, smiling with utterly flirtatious coyness. "I'm assuming you didn't take his advice?"

"No," she said, and then had a rather devilish idea. "Although – " She pulled her T shirt out a little and peered down at herself, raising her eyebrows in consideration at the black and raspberry underwear she was wearing underneath her faded yellow T shirt, before lifting her gaze slowly back to his. " – what I'm wearing's pretty nice, so if you don't like your actual present…."

She kept her eyes locked on his for a moment and he chuckled rather breathlessly, and then she returned to her search for his present, feeling just a touch more smug than she had previously about the kind of effect she could have on him.

Eventually she found her gift nestled between a shrunken volume on covert poisoning Mad-Eye had insisted it was vital she read, and a hairbrush she'd forgotten buying which, by the looks of it, she'd never used for anything other than picking up bag fluff. "Happy birthday," she said, holding the multicoloured stripy-papered gift out to him.

"Thank you," he said, grinning as he took it from her.

Remus turned the package over and over in his hands, feeling its corners and edges, and then lifted it and gave it a shake. Tonks smiled to herself. She just knew he'd want to try and figure out what it was before he opened it.

Remus bit his lip slightly as he considered the package in his hands, and then, having either apparently figured out what it was, or given up trying, he slid a finger under the flap of paper on the back and flicked it open. She'd never been particularly gifted with gift-wrapping charms, and the paper gave up its bounty instantly.

Tonks really hadn't known what to get him – she'd thought of lots of things that she wanted to buy him – clothes and books she thought he might like, but she didn't want to get him anything too expensive for fear that he might be embarrassed by it, and the more she'd thought about it, the more she thought he'd probably appreciate something that took a bit of time and thought, something personal, and so when Molly had sent her a picture of the two of them, she'd thought that was perfect, and a much better idea than the large, broomstick-motif jumper she'd expected.

She bit her lip, waiting for his reaction, which seemed to take an ice age to come.

It was a great picture – from New Year's Eve. They were dancing – well, not dancing – clinging to each other and laughing as they moved through the frame, her stumbling backwards over nothing, and them both laughing harder as he righted her. He looked gorgeous in it – totally happy and at ease, and the look in his eyes…. When she'd seen the picture for the first time, she'd wondered how, that night, either of them could ever have doubted it; their feelings for each other were quite clearly written all over their faces.

She'd had it framed properly by a small, wiry-haired wizard in Diagon Alley, choosing a black card mount and a pewter frame she thought might be Art Deco, although she wasn't entirely sure. She'd had the date embossed on the card, although she wasn't certain Remus was likely to forget, and she thought the frame went well with his things, or those she'd seen, anyway.

She looked up tentatively, heart pounding. Remus was grinning. He looked every inch as gorgeous as he did in the picture. "Thank you," he said, gazing down at the picture in his hands. "It's lovely."

He ran his fingertips lightly over the frame, taking in its curves and angles, and then watched the picture for a moment. She thought he couldn't have been more captivated if he'd never seen a wizarding photo before, and the thought made her tingle. She watched him as intently as he was watching the picture version of them, wondering why she'd never been this nervous about giving someone a gift before, or more pleased and excited that they liked it. Remus smiled and scuffed her image's face with his thumb, which made the butterflies in her stomach shift over to make way for a dull ache.

Tonks shifted from foot to foot and then sat on the edge of the desk next to him, hoping that might make her look less like a fourteen year old who'd just handed her crush a hand-made Valentine's card. "Sirius – " she said, and Remus looked up. " – once he'd given up trying to talk me into something red and lacy – told me that when you were at Hogwarts, the first thing you always did when you arrived was to unpack your photos."

"I did," Remus said quietly. So quietly, in fact, that if she hadn't been sitting so close, she wouldn't have heard it. "This is perfect," he said, dropping the wrapping paper onto the desk behind them and then taking her face in his hand. He leant forward and kissed her softly, sending a jolt right through her. "Thank you." She hummed vaguely. "I mean it," he murmured, scuffing her cheek with his thumb and setting the picture carefully down on the desk behind him. "Thank you."

He kissed her again and the intensity of it was quite dazzling. She was glad she'd opted to sit down, because she wasn't sure – if he'd kissed her like that when she was standing up – that her knees wouldn't have buckled. "I don't remember this being taken," he said softly as he moved away, raising his eyes to hers and playfully jostling her shoulder with his.

"No," she said, "me either. Maybe we were both too busy trying not to trip over my feet to notice."

"Maybe," he murmured, smiling as he pressed his lips back to hers.

Remus kissed her gently at first, his fingers uncurling against her neck and tickling their way into her hair, toying with the strands at her nape before making their way down and eliciting a shiver. She pressed her lips more insistently to his, stretching up into his kiss with a contented sigh, and he responded by coaxing her lips apart and pressing a little more firmly.

She slid her hands around his neck and he eased her closer, kissing her more insistently, and before she'd really had time to register quite how much he apparently liked his present, he was lowering her back onto the desk

And, even though the desk was hard and she had her hairbrush and that damn volume of Moody's on covert poisoning pressing into her spine, it was fabulous. She shifted back a bit further, hearing something slide off the desk and clatter to the floor as she planted one foot on the desk to get more comfortable. Remus eased himself gingerly on top of her, one leg hooking over hers, his hand finding her hip and settling there. His fingers lightly pressed and only exaggerated the tingles low down in her stomach that his lips were expertly producing.

His kiss was urgent and sexy, his tongue teasing hers and making her wish she could cancel their plans for the evening and drag him upstairs to put some of Sirius' crasser ideas into practice. She mumbled against his lips, only managing to get out half a sigh before he nibbled her bottom lip and made her breath hitch and the noise catch in her chest. She ran her hands down over his chest to his waist, and he moved closer, running one hand from her knee to her thigh and drawing her to him. She kissed him more intensely to assure him of her approval of his actions, and he moved away a little, clearing his throat as he kissed his way down hers, his hand amusing itself on her thigh. She whimpered and felt him smile against her skin before he pressed a kiss to it. "So you liked your present, then?" she murmured, rather breathily.

"Uh huh."

His lips were producing the most delightful sensations and she couldn't resist sliding her hands up his arms and raking her hands through his hair. "For my part, when that picture was taken," he murmured against the skin on her collarbone, "maybe I was too busy trying to resist the urge to throw you onto the table and do wicked things to you in amongst the party food."

She caught his face in her hands and dragged it up to hers. Remus' eyes glittered as if he was desperately battling the urge to laugh and his hair fell into his eyes. Her insides gasped. She raised an eyebrow at him and then pointedly glanced at the desk they were lying on. "Do you have a thing about tables?"

"No," he said, grinning. "I have a thing about you."

The end of his phrase got swallowed as they kissed again with renewed fervour, a jumble of kisses and hands, hairbrushes and the like in uncomfortable places, and sensations delicious and irresistible enough that they didn't care. Tonks wanted to melt.

She wasn't sure what it was, but since they'd had their talk about him being a werewolf, she'd felt something different, something new, every time they kissed. It was as if they were closer, somehow, as if this wasn't just about pleasant sensations anymore, the tease of their lips or the feel of exploring fingers, but something else as well. Something….

She wasn't sure she really wanted to put a word to it, but whatever it was, it was wonderful. She turned towards Remus more, pressing her hips to his, and smiled against his mouth as his breath hitched. She traced his jaw with her fingertips and wondered what he might say now if she offered to show him her underwear.

The noise of someone clearing their throat startled her a little, since she was pretty sure she hadn't made it, and pretty sure that Remus' vocal chords had been occupied with a low moan. Remus pulled away and looked up instinctively at the doorway, frowning when it was empty. His eyes flickered to the fireplace, and then rolled, and Tonks followed his gaze, finally fixing on Sirius' head, bobbing amongst the flames. He had one eyebrow raised and his hands clamped firmly over both eyes. "If I open my eyes," he said, "am I going to see something that makes me wish I'd gone blind?"

"No," Tonks said, at the very same time as Remus said:

"Yes."

Tonks sniggered as Remus' eyes roved over them both and the position they were in and then met hers, and he grinned sheepishly. "Well, good to know you've reached a consensus," Sirius said, and Remus moved away a little, reaching for her hand and pulling her more upright. "Can I look yet? Or are you still putting your clothes on?"

"It's fine," Remus said, perching on the edge of the desk and running a hand through his rumpled hair. "You can look."

Sirius peeled one hand away from his eyes and blinked at the room uncertainly, and then lifted the other. "You liked your present, then?" he said, raising an eyebrow at Remus.

"Very much," Remus replied, glancing at Tonks and making her stomach somersault. She bit her lip against her grin. "What can we do for you?"

Sirius shot Tonks a glance that was presumably supposed to be conspiratorial. "Nothing," he said quickly. "Just – I was hungry. I thought one of you might want to make me dinner."

Tonks watched a muscle in Remus' cheek twitch as he suppressed a smile. "We'll be down in a minute," he said, his voice lilting with just enough amusement that Tonks knew he'd rumbled them and wasn't at all convinced by Sirius' attempt at petulance, and even less by his attempt at innocence.

"Ok," Sirius said, disappearing from the fireplace, only to reappear seconds later. "Just – no funny business," he said. "Don't make me come up there…."

Tonks couldn't help but let out a giggle as Sirius disappeared again, and Remus chuckled quietly. "I suppose we should – " he said, gesturing to the door with a jerk of his head.

"Hmm," she said, and he leant in and kissed her slowly.

"Come on, then," he said as he leant back again, before she'd even had time to re-tousle his hair.

He held out his hand and helped her off the desk, gesturing vaguely to the pile of assorted handbag detritus she'd left strewn across it. "I hope you didn't have anything – " Remus paused, and let out a brief huff of amusement as he glanced up at the ceiling, " – squashable in there."

"If I did it probably deserved to die," she said, and Remus laughed, holding the bag open for her as she scooped the contents up by the handful and deposited them back in their red canvas prison.

Remus crouched down and retrieved the compact that had tumbled to the floor earlier, swiping up something else that had fallen under the desk while he was there. "Don't forget your hanky," he said, holding it out for her as he rose to his feet. She snatched it out of his hand and offered him a mock-glare which made him chuckle, before stuffing both items back in her bag. Remus took out his wand and vanished the wrapping paper, then took up his picture.

"Ready?" she said.

"As I'll ever be," Remus replied, rolling his eyes. "Just tell me you didn't let him get me a strip-witch."

"I vetoed the strip-witch," she said, and Remus sighed thankfully. "And the strip-wizard," she added, giggling as Remus' eyes widened momentarily in shock. "_And_ the novelty goblin stripper who apparently does amazing things with snitches."

Remus closed his eyes in horror and rocked back on his heels. "I knew I shouldn't have left him alone with Dung," he said, and then took her hand. Tilting his chin down dramatically, he peered up at her through his fringe. "Will it be very frightening?" he said.

Tonks laughed and thought of her attempts at cooking, and wondered what Sirius might have chosen to ice on the cake without her supervision. She looked away, not wanting to lie, and winced on Remus' behalf. "Better or worse than being bitten by a startled ferret when I only had Dung to offer me first aid?" he prompted.

"Better," she said. "Hopefully."

"All right," Remus said, as they headed for the door. "As long as neither of you feels the need to leap on me and shout 'S'alright, I'll suck the poison out!', I'm sure I'll have a lovely time."

"Poison?" Tonks said, perplexed. "Ferrets aren't poisonous."

As they turned and started to make their way down the stairs, Remus rolled his eyes. "I know," he said quietly. "I'm hoping Dung was just panicked into forgetting."

"Hoping?"

"Well," Remus said dryly, glancing up at the stuffed elf heads as they passed beneath them, "either that, or he was using it as an excuse to grope me."

Tonks stifled her laughter with her fingers so as not to wake Mrs Black, and Remus pushed the kitchen door open, gesturing for her to go first.

She stepped onto the staircase, and the instant Remus had closed the door quietly behind them and started to follow, there was a loud 'pop' and several fireworks whizzed straight for him, ruffling his hair as they passed. As he ducked they exploded, filling the air with red sparks, and the words 'Happy Birthday Moony!' appeared in twinkling gold letters in the air. They were both doused liberally with confetti as they passed underneath, and Tonks managed to nearly swallow several pieces as she laughed at the startled expression on Remus' face. He patted her on the back and then laughed, trying to shake tiny pink horseshoes, pale lemon stars and baby blue triangles out of his hair and off his shoulders. The more he tried to remove it, though, the more he seemed to attract, and by the time they reached the ground, he was covered in tiny, fluttering paper fragments.

Tonks looked around the kitchen. Sirius had certainly outdone himself, not only finishing what they'd planned to do together, but adding some touches of his own. Balloons in a variety of colours clustered together on the ceiling, and a large glass bowl of what she presumed was some kind of punch nestled in the middle of the table. It gave off a faintly worrying red glow. "About bloody time," Sirius said from the head of the table, where he was leaning back on his chair's back legs, balancing precariously. "I was beginning to wonder if I should send up a cold shower charm."

But Tonks was barely listening enough to shoot Sirius a derisory glare. She was far more interested in watching Remus as he took in the red and white checked tablecloth and the plates of sandwiches and haphazardly-iced cup cakes on the table. His eyes widened as they took in Molly's emergency replacement chocolate cake centre-piece, which now had the words 'Happy Birthday, you old git' etched on it in darker chocolate butter-cream icing.

Remus stood, covered in confetti, looking utterly stunned. "You did all this?" he said, gaze switching rapidly between them in disbelief.

"Yes," Sirius said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms as if he'd just been accused of something quite unsavoury.

"For me?" he said, trailing his fingers across the tablecloth as if he couldn't quite believe it was real. He set his picture frame down at the head of one place setting.

"It's your birthday," Tonks said, and Remus lifted his hand to his mouth briefly and then laughed, making the confetti that was clinging to his fringe flutter.

"You shouldn't have – I mean you didn't have to – "

"I know."

"I didn't expect – "

"I know," Tonks said, jigging slightly on the spot. "That's what makes it so much fun."

"The look on your face is priceless," Sirius said, leaning back in his chair and letting out a long, slow chortle.

"I'll bet."

Sirius took out his wand and called off the confetti with a lazy wave. "Sit down," he said. "You're making me nervous."

Tonks pulled out a chair for Remus and he shot her a look of vague protest, and then sank down into it. "We were going to throw you a proper party," Sirius said, "but then we remembered that I'm a wanted criminal and you haven't really got any friends –"

Remus shot Sirius a glare that Tonks thought was entirely half-hearted, and Sirius grinned, reaching across the table and filling three glasses with punch. He set one in front of Remus and another in front of Tonks as she settled in a chair next to him, wondering if she should have chosen one on the other side of the table in case keeping her hands off him was a trickier prospect than anticipated. Which, when he was wearing that adorable, slightly confused, desperately happy expression, was a distinct possibility.

"Happy birthday, mate," Sirius said, flinging a badly-wrapped package at Remus' chest. Remus caught it deftly and grinned, but as he turned it over and over in his hands, feeling the corners, Tonks' suspicion was piqued. The present she'd bought for Sirius to give Remus didn't have any corners. In fact, it was distinctly corner-free, while the one Remus had in his hands seemed to have four….

For a moment, Remus eyed the package in his hands just as suspiciously as she was, although she suspected for entirely different reasons. Merlin only knew what Marauders considered to be appropriate birthday fodder. Remus looked up, meeting Sirius' eye, his narrowing slightly. "Is this going to blow up in my face?" he asked. Tonks laughed. She supposed that answered the Marauder birthday-fodder question.

"Figuratively or literally?" Sirius said.

"Let's start with literally, shall we?" Remus said.

"No."

"Figuratively?"

"Perhaps."

Remus laughed, and then gingerly peeled the spotty wrapping paper open and peered inside. He grinned at it, and then Sirius, before extracting what appeared to be a book and setting it down on the table as carefully as if he really did expect it to explode. He leant heavily on his elbow and rubbed his chin, seeming as if he was desperately trying to avoid laughing.

Tonks peered over the table to read the cover: _Fly Fishing_, by J.R. Hartley. "Fly fishing?" she said. "What's that?"

Remus jaw tensed and he gritted his teeth together, covering his mouth with his fingers. He swallowed rather obviously, and then choked out the words: "Muggle sport."

"Why would anybody go fishing for flies?" Tonks said, her forehead creasing in confusion as to why anyone would do anything that was such a waste of time, and why Remus would need a book on the subject. "Isn't that really, really hard?"

Sirius' laughter in response was so loud that Tonks expected him to set Mrs Black off at any second. "What?" she said, and Remus met her eye, a cheeky twinkle in his as he pressed his fingers harder into his mouth.

He swallowed again, closing his eyes briefly and letting out a brief, faint snort of amusement. He cleared his throat. "It's a kind of fishing," he said. "It's a different technique."

"That's right. I thought Moony might need to brush up," Sirius said. "On his technique."

"I didn't know you liked fishing," she said, turning to Remus.

Sirius laughed so hard that she thought he might burst something, rocking back and forth in his chair, slapping the table and then wiping the tears from his eyes. Tonks eyed Remus searchingly. There was something deeply suspicious going on. Remus pressed his lips tightly together, taking a moment to try and quell the amusement that was clearly rising within. "It's not – it's not a book on fly fishing. He's charmed the cover – I presume so only I can see it?" he said, looking up and meeting Sirius' eye with a questioning raised eyebrow. Sirius nodded.

"What is it then?" Tonks said. She watched as Remus' jaw tensed as he fought the laughter that was evident in his eyes.

For a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer, and then he steepled his fingers in front of him, cleared his throat and said: "I believe the term would be _lovers' guide_."

Tonks started, eyes wide, which sent Sirius' laughter back into over-drive.

"In case you've forgotten where everything goes," Sirius said, wiping his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. Remus shot him a look that was equal parts amusement and disapproval, as if he knew he shouldn't laugh, but desperately wanted to.

"How thoughtful."

"Well," Sirius said indignantly, "if you're going to shag my cousin, you should at least do it right."

Remus met Tonks' eye and his eyebrows dipped apologetically. The fact that the eyes beneath them were sparkling with amusement deadened the effect somewhat, but luckily she thought the combination was adorable on him. He returned his eyes to Sirius', which were sparkling with equal amusement, making him look more alive than he had done for quite some time. Remus finally allowed himself a smile. "Thank you," he said.

"Well you know me, Moony," Sirius said, his face stretched into a grin that made him look ten years younger, "I like to do my best to try and help."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "I don't suppose it would really feel like my birthday without you doing something to embarrass me."

"Oh, so this is a tradition, is it?" Tonks said.

"Oh yes," Remus muttered ruefully. "One that I assumed we were now too old for. Apparently not."

Sirius laughed. "Anyway, this is your real present," he said, tossing another, equally badly wrapped but rather more familiar-looking, present at Remus. "Tonks picked it," he said softly.

Remus offered them both a quick warm smile, and then turned his attention to the gift in his hands. She and Sirius had decided to buy him a jumper, with him providing the money and her the legwork. In theory, it was a simple purchase, but in practice, however, it had been a little more tricky, and she'd spent hours in the shop debating greens and browns and even reds, wondering which would suit Remus and what he'd like best. She'd even asked a couple of passing wizards who had similar hair to try on a couple of choices, just to be sure. The one she'd chosen eventually was a dark blue-green coloured V neck, and she'd been nervous about it ever since, wondering if she might have chosen the wrong thing.

Remus freed the jumper of its garish wrapping paper, and held it up, grinning. "Do you like it?" she said. "They said if you didn't you could take it back and swap it."

"No," he said. "I love it."

Remus obligingly pulled off the grey jumper he had been wearing and slipped the new one over his head, adjusting it and the way the collar of his shirt sat until he was happy with it. "What do you think?" he said, looking down at himself at smoothing it across his chest.

"Very swish," Sirius said.

"Hmm," Tonks concurred. He looked every bit as handsome in it as she'd hoped he would.

"I think the squeak means she likes it and she'd rather I bugger off and leave you two alone so she can take it off again," Sirius said, and Tonks gave him a quick kick of admonishment under the table. Not that he'd been wrong, of course…. She swallowed, remembering what Remus had said about him battling the desire to throw her onto the table and do wicked things to her amongst the party food. She shivered, trying not to let out the school-girl giggle she was on the very brink of.

"Thank you both," Remus said, and Tonks was grateful that he'd spoken and stopped her mind from wandering down a track that was all too filled with distracting images.

"Don't mention it, mate," Sirius said. He reached for his glass of punch, and raised it. "Here's to you – older, but not wiser. Hopefully."

Tonks chuckled and Remus joined in, and they both raised their glasses and clinked them against Sirius', before taking a sip. Tonks winced as the punch burned her throat, and when she looked up, Remus' eyes were wide and a bit watery. "Do I want to know what the ingredients of this are?" he said, waving vaguely at the bowl in the centre of the table and then coughing into the back of his hand.

"Probably not."

"Here's to an interesting night, then," Remus said, raising his glass and taking another sip.

"That's another Marauder tradition," Sirius said, leaning across the table conspiratorially and meeting Tonks' eye. "The birthday boy must get drunk to and beyond the point where he's capable of rational thought, let alone speech. You're very lucky. Normally girlfriends aren't permitted to bear witness to the process."

Tonks smiled, her stomach tingling in approval at Sirius' use of the word 'girlfriend'. She really did like having people think of her as Remus' girlfriend.

"So what are we having to soak up all this alcohol?" Remus said, gesturing to the table.

"Well this one," Tonks said, pointing to the nearest plate, "is hot dogs and grilled cheese with onion relish."

"Wow," he said, laughing.

"And this one – " she said, taking the plates in order " – is boring old ham and salad, but that one's pork and apple sauce." She pointed to the plate closest to Sirius. "That one's the fish finger, ketchup and peas, and the one next to it is steak and blue cheese sauce, the cobs are chips and mayonnaise, and the other one's turkey, stuffing and pickled onions."

"Very inventive," Remus said. "I'm impressed."

Tonks looked at the selection of sandwiches she'd made. They were no-where near as neat as Remus' – her sandwiches were all Marauder, she felt, and rather shabby-looking ones at that – but Remus didn't seem to mind. He reached for a steak and blue cheese sandwich. "Dare I?" he said, his tone light and teasing, his eyes dancing.

"You know, if you really liked me, you wouldn't mind getting food poisoning," she said, and Remus obligingly took a bite.

Sirius pulled the plate of fish finger sandwiches towards him and selected the biggest, taking a large bite and chewing it thoughtfully. "What's with all the strange fillings?" he said, shoving a piece of stray crust into his mouth.

"I introduced Tonks to the Marauder Hangover Special," Remus said.

"And when did you get Tonks drunk enough to warrant one of those?" Sirius said, raising an eyebrow accusatorially. "Because, you know, I think I'd have to frown on that."

"There was only very minimal drunkenness involved," Remus returned, "so hold your big brotherly horses."

Sirius turned towards Tonks, mouth open in awe and giving her far too good a view of half-chewed fish fingers. "You ate one sober?" he said.

"I am an Auror," she said, and he chortled.

"You know, it's a very fine line between bravery and stupidity, cousin," he said, nodding sagely and polishing off the rest of his sandwich before reaching for another.

Tonks met Remus' eye and he smiled. She wondered if they were both thinking the same thing: how nice it was to have Sirius like this, instead of the frustrated, morose creature he'd become of late. "I thought you'd rather have these than boring old cheese and pickle," Tonks said, reaching for a chip cob and offering one to Remus, who nodded and took one.

"Indeed," he said, "and I applaud your imaginative take on the traditional birthday tea."

Tonks grinned, and took a large bite of her chip cob, quite impressed that she'd managed to perform a good enough gentle warming charm to keep the contents warm without completely incinerating the bread – which was what had happened to her first three batches. "So what have you done to each other in the past on your birthdays, then?" she said, reaching for her punch to try and dislodge a stubborn chip from her throat before she choked on it.

"Well," Sirius said, rocking back in his chair. "Although Moony likes to let everyone _think_ he's all sweet and innocent, he was, for a while, the king of the conniving birthday prank."

"Oh yes?" Tonks said, raising an eyebrow at Remus, who was pretending to be completely engrossed in his cob.

"When I was – was I fifteen or sixteen?" Sirius mused. "Anyway," he said, waving his own question away, "I was at a delicate age – " Remus snorted. Sirius glowered, and Remus held up his hands in apology, gesturing for him to continue. " – and he hit me with a spontaneous rhyming couplet charm over breakfast. I leapt up onto the table – no idea what I was doing – and launched into an improvised sonnet about how much I loved marmalade."

"And then he just couldn't stop," Remus said. "It was sonnets about statues we passed, limericks at lunchtime – I think he attempted a sestina at one point – "

"Yes, and this bastard wouldn't lift it until that night, even though I'd arranged to meet a girl – "

"I seem to recall she rather liked your ode to her pigtails," Remus said, and Sirius laughed.

"Pigtails, pigtails, so much better than wig tails, I love you so much I could gargle your entrails," Sirius pronounced dramatically, throwing his arms wide. Remus chuckled, while Tonks groaned at the rather displeasing mental image she'd been presented with. "Hard to keep up my rebellious image when I was spouting poetry, though," Sirius added, reaching for his glass and draining it.

"You pulled it off with considerable flair," Remus said, smiling at the memory. "And that was your fifteenth. On your sixteenth, James and I cast a forgetfulness charm on our room after we left, so that every time you tried to leave you forgot why you were doing it, and you missed all our lessons and spent the next week in detention."

"That was a good one," Sirius said.

"As was my seventeenth," Remus said, turning to Tonks. "It was just after they'd found out about my huge dislike for caterpillars, so they cast some kind of charm so that I'd see all authority figures as giant, twelve foot versions, so all day I was cowering whenever one of the teachers spoke to me. Transfiguration was particularly trying, since Professor McGonagall was giving us one of her speeches about how unless we all pulled our socks up, we'd all fail our NEWT. Anyway, she was standing right next to me – twelve feet high and far too green – " Remus shivered at the thought " – and I must have looked horrified because she turned to me – waving her caterpillar legs, which only made things worse – and said 'There's no need to look like a frightened kitten, Mr Lupin, I'm sure with the proper application you'll have no trouble attaining an acceptable grade'."

They all laughed, and Remus reached for the plate of turkey, stuffing and pickled onion sandwiches, offering Tonks one before taking one for himself, while Sirius stuffed another fish finger one into his mouth and refreshed their glasses with punch. "Well," he said, swallowing the remnants of his fish finger sandwich with difficulty. "In true Marauder tradition, I should like to propose a toast."

Tonks raised an eyebrow. Hadn't they already done that? "We toast a lot on birthdays," Remus said, meeting her eye and apparently reading her mind. "It helps speed up the process of mindless inebriation."

"Less chatter from the floor, please," Sirius said, raising his eyebrow at Remus and then his glass. Remus raised his glass too, failing to look suitably abashed. "To Remus J Lupin, erstwhile Professor, un-ending Marauder, and birthday prankster extraordinaire, who always takes whatever life throws at him on the chin."

Remus smiled bashfully as he clinked his glass, and they dissolved into pleasant chatter about birthday's past while they polished off the majority of the sandwiches. The chatter sustained them until they'd all drained their glasses, whereupon Sirius sprang to his feet and re-filled them, and proposed another toast. "To Tonks, fearless Auror – even when it comes to chilli and fried egg sandwiches, noble scourge of our insanely evil family, surprisingly fantastic cook – "

"You wait 'til we've tried the cupcakes before you say that," Tonks interjected, frowning at the thought.

" – and enemy of troll-leg umbrella stands everywhere."

She laughed. "Cheers," she and Remus said together, clinking their glasses and taking a sip.

"And talking of cupcakes," Remus said, gesturing to the plate, "may I?"

Tonks nodded, and Remus took a pink icing-topped cake with rather more enthusiasm than she thought its dribbled decoration deserved. He peeled back the paper case and took a bite, swallowing and smiling pleasantly. "They're very nice," he said, sliding the plate towards Sirius. He took a cake with blue icing and ate it whole, while Remus and Tonks looked on aghast.

"A Marauder birthday is the cause for many things," he said, meeting her eye, "but apparently not better manners."

They chatted pleasantly for a while, with Remus regaling them with stories about the horrors of Dung's house, and Sirius holding court on a variety of subjects of a variously disturbing nature until their glasses were drained, and Tonks, at least, was feeling a little bit light-headed. Remus re-filled their glasses, raising his in toast. "To Sirius – "

"Don't you dare tell her what my middle-name is, Moony," Sirius said, threatening Remus rather ineffectually with a second cupcake. Remus raised an eyebrow.

"To Sirius – " Remus paused dramatically, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Sirius' hand twitch towards his wand " – Black. Master decorator, Casanova, and genius – the only man I've ever let hump my leg."

Tonks frowned at that particularly unsavoury mental image as Remus and Sirius downed large swigs of punch. "When did you – actually, I don't want to know," Tonks said. Remus smiled at her, and Sirius leaned forward and slapped him on the back, nearly knocking him off his chair.

"I think it's time for cake," he said.

"You just had cake."

"Not chocolate cake," Sirius said, sticking his bottom lip out slightly. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Did you make it?" he said, eyeing Sirius suspiciously

"Would I be this keen to eat it if I had?" Sirius said, and Remus' head dipped in thought before he nodded in acquiescence, she supposed thinking that that was a fair point. "Molly made it."

"Ah," Remus said. "Then I'd love some."

Sirius conjured a single – and rather large – white church candle and stabbed it into the top of the cake, right in the centre of the 'o' in 'old git', and lit it with his wand. His eyes darted about the room, and a rather worried expression crept across his features. "I suppose we should sing, or something," he said, looking about as keen on the idea as Tonks was.

Still, despite their mutual reluctance, she and Sirius made a reasonable stab at limping their way through a chorus of Happy Birthday, which brought a distinct pink tinge to Remus' cheeks, even though she thought a couple of cats being strangled would have been a more pleasant sound, and possibly would have been executed more rhythmically. As they drew to a close, Remus stood and blew out the candle, and they both clapped enthusiastically. Remus took out his wand and neatly cut three generous slices of chocolate cake, summoning three plates from the dresser and handing them one each. "Do we get a speech?" Sirius said.

"I'll spare you," Remus said, re-taking his seat and tucking into his cake with gusto.

Tonks grabbed a fork and did the same, sighing happily as the cake melted in her mouth. She was suddenly quite glad her attempt had exploded and was currently residing mostly on her kitchen ceiling….

"Oh, and I've got – " Sirius said abruptly. He rummaged in the back pocket of his jeans and extracted a mint-coloured envelope. He flattened out the edges and handed it to Remus. "From your mum," Sirius said. He leant towards Tonks and grinned, flashing his eyebrows briefly. "She flirts outrageously with me, of course."

Remus rolled his eyes, but took the card anyway, extracting it slowly from its envelope with his long fingers. Tonks got a brief glimpse of a dancing seascape on the front before he opened the card, smiled briefly at whatever was written inside, and then stood it up on the table, next to the picture she'd given him. She watched the tiny sailboats dip and rise on the painted ocean for a moment, before the scrape of Sirius' fork across his plate attracted her attention. She looked up to find him shovelling the last of his cake into his mouth, while she and Remus still had most of their to eat. "Do you always eat so – " she struggled for the word " – quickly?"

"Sorry," Sirius said, suddenly looking rather crestfallen. "Habit I picked up in Azkaban. There's some right nutters in there. They'll have the stuff right out of your mouth if you're not careful. You've got to learn to swallow anything you don't want nicked straight away."

Tonks' eyes widened in horror at what she'd said. "Oh – Merlin – sorry – I didn't think – I never thought –"

She frowned in embarrassment, looking to Remus for support, and finding him rather unexpectedly smiling. "He's joking," he said. "He always ate like a pig."

Tonks turned her attention to Sirius, finding him grinning at her with a rather manically pleased with himself expression. She tightened her jaw and stuck her tongue out at him. "Git," she said.

"If you're going to hang around with us, you'd better get used to it," he said, and Tonks smiled, even though she thought he was a git for making her feel bad, because it felt, for the first time, probably, that she and Sirius and Remus were a unit, of sorts. And it was a very nice feeling. "Anyway," Sirius said, waving at the now-empty punch bowl in the centre of the table "we appear to have run out of punch."

"I suppose you have a suggestion for how we might rectify the situation?" Remus said, resting his head on his hand and peering at Sirius through his fringe.

"You know me, Moony," Sirius said, summoning a bottle of Firewhiskey from the pantry, "always be prepared."

He set the bottle down on the table, summoned some more appropriate squat glass, and poured them each a very generous measure. Tonks shovelled a large forkful of cake into her mouth as a precaution. "Who's turn is it to toast?"

Remus' eyes fell on Tonks, and she shook her head furiously. She couldn't. Remus' toast had been witty and liberally sprinkled with warmth and affection, and even Sirius had his moments of rather uncharacteristic kind-heartedness. She didn't have the faintest idea what to say. Remus seemed to have other ideas, though, and he smiled at her encouragingly. "Go on," he said. "I wouldn't want you to feel left out."

"Come on, cousin," Sirius said. "Don't let the side down."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "All right," she said, lifting her Firewhiskey tentatively and wishing she could take a sip to steady her nerves. "To Remus, who deserves to have a very happy birthday, and to Sirius, who makes really great punch."

Remus clinked his glass against hers, his eyes twinkling reassuringly at her, and she smiled. "See?" he said. "It wasn't that bad."

Sirius tossed back his Firewhiskey, barely wincing. Then his face lit up as if he'd just had a very good idea. "Do you remember that time that you – " Remus held up his hand for quiet, and Sirius stopped.

"Before you go any further, could you please ask yourself whether this is a tale I want Tonks to hear?" he said, his lips curving into a slight smile. Sirius smirked.

"I can see how there's a chance you wouldn't want your girlfriend to know what a liability you are when you're hammered."

"Me?" Remus said, appalled. Sirius ignored him, waving his protest aside.

"Anyway, do you remember that time we all went out, and you had all that Firewhiskey because you wanted to drown your sorrows – "

"About what?" Remus said. "Help me narrow it down and determine whether or not I should hit you with a silencing charm before you say something that makes Tonks wish she'd never agreed to have anything to do with me."

"How am I supposed to remember that?" Sirius said, aghast. "You did a lot of moping, Moony – they all tended to blend into one after a while."

Remus opened his mouth to protest, but Tonks jumped in before he had the chance. "I did hear a rumour," she said, "about an incident involving nudity, humiliation and a fist fight after a large amount of Firewhiskey."

"Did you?" Sirius said, smirking at Remus. "I would have thought that fell squarely in the never-to-be-mentioned-in-front-of-girlfriends category."

Tonks met Remus' gaze and raised an eyebrow. "She's fishing," he said, looking away and smiling to himself as he raised his glass and took a sip of his drink. "She knows nothing."

"Glad to hear it," Sirius said, "because neither of us come out of that one looking very good."

Remus chuckled softly. "Indeed."

Tonks folded her arms and let out a brief huff of frustration that she wasn't about to hear the story. "Of course that's not what I was talking about," Sirius said, grinning, "I was talking about that night in The Grinning Kneazle when you had a couple of dozen too many and fell off the table."

Tonks' eyebrows darted up in surprise and she turned to Remus, any huffiness dissipating in favour of how curious she was to hear any tale about Remus that involved him falling off a table. "What were you doing on a table?"

"Singing," Sirius said, through a snigger.

"Singing?"

Remus dropped his head onto his hand and let out a low groan. "I thought we had a gentleman's agreement never to speak of that again?" he said.

"Did we?" Sirius said. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Yes."

"When did we agree on that?"

"It was tacit."

"Oh." Sirius looked momentarily perplexed. "I don't think I do tacit."

"Apparently not," Remus replied, rubbing his temple with his fingertips.

"What were you singing?" Tonks asked.

"Some God-awful dreary – "

"It's not dreary," Remus said.

"It is. All the music you like's dreary. I'd rather listen to the anguished howls of Azkaban's residents than most of your record collection."

Remus pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

"What were you singing?" Tonks asked again, turning more squarely to Remus. He avoided her eyes and cleared his throat.

"As I recall it was 'You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio'," he said, and when his eyes flickered to hers, they were coy and amused at the same time. She stifled a laugh.

"To anyone in particular?" she asked, feigning nonchalance rather badly.

Sirius spluttered into the glass he'd apparently re-filled. "No. If there's one thing Moony shouldn't do to try and get into a witch's knickers, it's sing." Remus shot him a look of admonishment, which Sirius ignored. "He's much better off with his sweet and innocent routine," he muttered.

Two hours later, Remus' birthday cake was half-eaten, the bottle of Firewhiskey was three-quarters empty, and Tonks was feeling a little bit drunk around the edges. She'd gotten over her fear of toasting quite rapidly, proposing that they toast the stuffed elf heads in the hall, and as a testament to the fact that Remus and Sirius were feeling as fuzzy of thought as she was, they'd both thought it was an excellent idea.

She looked up from the glass in her hand, the contents of which she'd been studying for some minutes for no apparent reason. Remus was swaying slightly in his seat, and Sirius was in the middle of a ribald story she and Remus had both rather lost track of around half an hour ago. "So I said to him – I said 'screw you and your tight-arsed door policies' – well I would've if I could have said something – "

"Er, why couldn't you say anything?"

"I was Padfoot," Sirius said, with an airy wave. "So I just pissed on his leg."

Remus and Tonks exchanged glances and then burst out laughing, even though they had no idea what the story had been about. Sirius saluted them both, and then slumped forward and toppled into a plate of left-over birthday cake.

Tonks rested her head on her hand, still half-heartedly chuckling at Sirius' story, and Remus hunched forward and rested his head on his fist, peering up at her through his fringe from the tabletop. Tonks' eye switched from him to Sirius to the plate of cake and then back again. "I've got the strangest sense of deja vu," she said.

"Me too," he said.

"Does he always pass out in food?" she said.

"If there's food to be passed out in, Padfoot will find it," he said. "He slept the whole night with his face in a plate of spaghetti bolognaise once. When he woke up he had it all stuck to his cheek…."

Remus trailed off into a spluttered laugh and looked up at her coyly through his hair. She was suddenly rather overtaken by desire, and she stood up, clinging to the table to steady her inebriated legs, and stepped closer until he leant back in his chair. Tonks slid onto his lap, and the chair creaked beneath them. "This is new, though," he said, his voice soft and deliciously teasing as he rested his hands on her hips. "I'd definitely have remembered this," he added, sliding his hands round to her back and pulling her closer. She hooked her feet around the chair legs for balance, biting her lip at the sensations that passed through her body as they were pressed even closer.

"Hmm," she murmured against his lips as she leaned in to kiss him.

Remus responded with instant enthusiasm, and his mouth was warm and sweet-tasting from the Firewhiskey, his lips as accommodating as ever. He kissed her just the way she liked to be kissed – his lips were a feather-light tease one second, fully committed and intense the next. She heard Remus take a sharp inward breath as she shifted against him in appreciation, and his fingers tightened on her back briefly, before his hands slid up her spine, drawing her closer to him and giving her the tingliest stomach sensations as he held their bodies together.

She felt her body come alive under his touch, and every pound of her heart and fresh surge of blood through her veins only served to intensify things, to make her feel every delicious sensation more keenly. She really wasn't sure how much more she could stand before she gave in to the urge to drag him upstairs and –

"Moony? Are you taking – "

"Yes I am," Remus said, barely bothering to prise his lips from hers to let the words out. "So be quiet and avert your eyes."

Sirius tutted, but Remus ignored him, taking her face in his hands and kissing her soundly, and very nearly making Tonks forget that they'd been interrupted at all.

"I can still hear you," Sirius muttered, and Remus dropped his head onto her shoulder, sighing. Tonks glanced behind her to see her cousin resting his head firmly in his plate of cake crumbs. "As if this house isn't full enough of disturbing memories…" Remus took out his wand and conjured a pair of pink fluffy earmuffs, which he tossed at Sirius' head. "Ow."

Remus brought her face back to his, kissing her chin before making for her lips.

"You could at least have made them a colour that goes with my skin tone."

Remus sighed and leant back, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You really are the human equivalent of a cold shower, you know," he said. Sirius grinned.

Tonks clamboured off Remus' lap and he shot her a brief glance of acute disappointment, which made her stomach clench. She wobbled slightly on her feet, not knowing whether it was Firewhiskey and punch or Remus-induced inebriation that had made her feel light-headed, dizzy and as if her knees weren't working properly. She was ninety-nine percent sure Remus was responsible for the flurry of activity in her insides. One thing was for certain, though. "I think I should go to bed," she said, a little surprised that she didn't slur her words. "I've got to be at work in – yikes," she said as she checked her watch " – seven hours."

She bent down and gave Remus a lingering kiss before ruefully forcing herself to pull away and move towards the door. "Don't I get one?"

She raised an eyebrow at Sirius, and then went over to his chair and kissed him on the top of the head. "Happy?" she said, ruffling his hair on impulse, and he grinned at her.

"You know we're going to talk about you as soon as you're gone," he said. She sighed.

"As long as it's mostly complimentary," she said, "I don't mind. G'night."

Tonks trudged up the stairs, clinging to the banister, fully intending to crawl into bed and sleep, dreaming wonderfully Remus-y dreams about desks and chairs and what constituted wicked things amongst party food. When she'd closed the door of her room behind her, she whimpered at the thought and leant on the wall, damning Sirius for not knowing how to pass out properly.

She wondered if they'd really be talking about her.

She tried to push the thought aside. Remus wouldn't talk about her. Not like that.

But then he and Sirius had been friends a long time, and he had had quite a bit to drink….

The thought wouldn't let go, and her brain helpfully chipped in with questions about what Remus might be saying about her, what he really thought about her, what he really thought about _them_.

She wished there was a way to hear –

And then a thought occurred, a bolt from the blue.

She went over to the desk, opened the drawer, and there it was. One of Fred and George's Extendable Ears. Sirius had found it earlier in one of the upstairs rooms when they were looking for left-over party streamers and had given it to her, thinking that it might come in handy. And lo and behold….

She bit her lip. She shouldn't.

The impulse, however, proved too strong for her drunken brain to resist, and before she really knew what was happening, she was kneeling on the landing, feeding the Extendable Ear between the banisters and uttering the word 'Go', sending the fleshy string on its way down to the kitchen. She put the other end to her ear, and waited, swaying slightly and resting heavily on one hand to steady herself.

As the voices below became clearer, she swallowed, not really knowing what to expect.

Sirius' voice was the first she heard: "A toast," he said. "Happy Birthday."

"Thank you," Remus said, and Tonks heard clinking glasses. They were quiet for a moment, and Tonks shifted into a slightly more comfortable position, curling her knees into her chest and resting her head on her hand.

"You like her, don't you?" Sirius said, his voice floating up to her as clear and crisp as if she'd been sitting next to him.

"What was it that gave me away?" Remus said, in a tone that suggested he might be rolling his eyes.

"No, I mean you _really_ like her."

There was a long pause, and for a minute Tonks thought the Extendable Ear might not be working. She took it out, gave it a quick shake and then held it back up to her ear, frowning at its sudden malfunction. And then Remus replied: "I more than really like her."

Tonks started and nearly dropped the Extendable Ear altogether. _More than really like?_

Her heart pounded every bit as quickly as it had when she was sitting on his lap in the kitchen. What was more than really like? Did he just mean _really_, _really_ like?

Or –

She swallowed.

She wasn't even sure it was helpful to let the thought form in case he _did_ just mean really, really like – which was cause enough for enthusiastic inside jigging – and not –

She swallowed again. Did he – could he possibly – mean something else? Something involving another four letter word beginning with 'l' that neither of them had mentioned yet?

He couldn't, she thought. He must mean really, really, like…although there was something about the way he'd said it….

Her heart pounded, nearly drowning out what Sirius said next:

"You're not just messing around?"

"No," Remus said, his tone rather horrified. "When have you known me to just mess around?" There was a pause. "All right," he said ruefully. "I don't need to hear the list."

Tonks' features crumpled into a frown, all of their own accord. She didn't like the sound of a list. She knew he'd had other girlfriends – really, at his age, she'd have thought it a bit odd if he hadn't – and that some had been more serious than others, but the thought of him with anyone else drove her just a little bit crazy, as did the thought that Sirius knew more about the matter than she did.

"How far have things gone between you exactly?"

She was so lost in her own thoughts that Sirius' voice startled her a little, but she couldn't help smiling as her brain made sense of the words, because it was a very Sirius – very blokey – kind of question.

"Far enough that if I were to tell you, you'd wish you hadn't asked," Remus said, and she smiled again, for entirely different reasons.

"Good job you're a gentleman, then," Sirius muttered.

There was another long pause, and Tonks wished they'd keep talking, distract her, because every time they stopped, her mind went back to tossing that 'more than really like' thing back and forth, wondering which of the two options he meant, wondering why he hadn't said anything of the sort to her. But then she hadn't said anything of the sort to him, either….

"It's nice to see you happy anyway," Sirius said, granting her wish for distraction. "You're normally such a miserable bastard."

"A role you seem to have taken to with remarkable aplomb in my stead," Remus said.

"You'd be miserable too if you were stuck in here day in, day out."

"I _am_ stuck in here day in, day out," Remus said. "And to make matters worse I've got to put up with you and your bloody whinging. If anyone should be knocking back Firewhiskey at breakfast it's me."

Sirius let out a brief snort of amusement.

"You are being careful, aren't you? With Tonks," he said, and Tonks felt her brow crease. Even for Sirius it seemed an odd change of direction. She put it down to the Firewhiskey

"Don't you think I'm a bit old for the contraception charm talk?"

"No, I meant – I meant with your heart."

Remus laughed heartily. "Now I know you're drunk," he said.

"I'm serious."

"I know you are. That's what makes it so amusing."

"I know what you're like," Sirius said. "How you get yourself into…situations."

"Situations?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."

"I'm not pretending," Remus said, sounding distinctly baffled.

"You must admit that you've got a bit of a tendency to, you know – "

"Ah," Remus said. "The way I – "

"Yes."

"Because I – "

"Yes."

"And then I – "

"Yes."

"And then things – "

"Exactly."

Tonks let out a frustrated huff. What on earth were they talking about? Would it have killed them to spell it out for those listening illicitly on the landing? This is what happens to people who eavesdrop, she thought. They hear a load of half-thoughts they can't put together properly and a load of things they can't possibly understand that are bound to torment them.

"Well," Remus said, "I don't think I'm in a situation, as you put it."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you trying to tell me that I _am_ in a situation and I don't know it?"

"No, it's just – well, I don't want you to get hurt."

"Well," Remus said, "thank you for being concerned, but I don't think there's going to be any situation. I mean I'm not entirely sure what she sees in me, but – "

"Haven't you asked?"

"No," Remus said. "Of course I haven't. To be honest I don't want to bring it up again in case it hasn't occurred to her that there _is_ nothing to see in me."

Tonks felt an acute stab in her chest. She wanted to rush downstairs and tell him exactly what she saw in him –

"Don't be ridiculous," Sirius said, and Tonks nodded her approval for her cousin's words.

"I'm not being ridiculous."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm not," he said.

"Are. You're quite the hotty these days, you know," Sirius said. "If I was a girl, I would."

"As you're roughly as choosy as a randy stoat," Remus said, "that's very comforting."

Sirius chortled quietly to himself, and Tonks thought she heard him pouring another couple of drinks. "You do have things to offer, you know," Sirius said.

"Like what, exactly? My incredible wealth? My fantastic employment prospects? The fact that I turn into a bloodthirsty monster every month?"

"Like _you_," Sirius said emphatically. "You can roll your eyes all you like, Moony, and I know you think I'm only saying this because I'm drunk, but I'm not. You're pretty special. Not many people would have given me a second chance for one. I mean you don't hold a grudge – even when you probably should – that's pretty rare. And you're kind, and thoughtful, and generous. You'd give anybody everything you had if they asked for it."

"So what you're actually saying is that for people I care about, I'm a bit of a push-over."

"Well yes," Sirius said, laughing. "And girls like that in a man."

On the landing, Tonks sniggered.

"I don't know," Remus said, letting his words out as a long, drawn out sigh.

"For what it's worth," Sirius said, "I hope you get married and have loads of children and grow old together and sicken everybody with how completely in love you still are."

"Steady on," Remus said, his tone leaping in surprise. "It's only been a few months."

"I know," Sirius said, "but you're my best hope to be a rakishly handsome and eccentric uncle. You can't blame me for getting excited."

Remus let out a soft breath of laughter, and Tonks wished she could see his face, his reaction to what Sirius was saying. Was that what he wanted? Had he even thought about that kind of thing?

But Remus, annoyingly, didn't elaborate. "And what about you, Black?" he said. "What are you planning to do with the rest of your life?"

"It'd be easier to make plans if we weren't in the middle of a war and there wasn't a price on my head, Moony."

"I suppose," he said. "What if we weren't? Where would you be?"

"Hypothetical tonight?" Sirius said, rather wistfully. "We haven't played that for years."

"No," Remus said. "So what'll it be?"

There was a lengthy pause, and Tonks sat up, resting her head on the banister as she waited for Sirius' reply. "Well, since it's your birthday," Sirius said, "I'd be in a fancy restaurant with you and Tonks, with a blonde half my age on my arm. I'd be making you feel uncomfortable by insisting on paying, and making everyone uncomfortable by flirting with the waitress."

"And hypothetical tomorrow?"

"Puking my guts up. Karmic food poisoning."

Remus chuckled. "It's nice to see you haven't lost your sense of whimsy."

"What about you? Hypothetical no war tonight."

"I wouldn't change a thing," he said, "not even being bitten by that damn ferret. I've had a very nice day."

"You big softy."

"Thank you."

Tonks traced the grain on the banister with her fingernail, smiling at Remus' words.

"Well, I think we should have another toast," Sirius said. "You choose."

"To absent friends," Remus said, and she heard clinking.

They were quiet for a long time, and when Sirius spoke, his voice was oddly soft. "Sorry I haven't been much fun to live with recently."

"It's all right. You can't possibly think that after all this time I'd hold something as trivial as you making my life a misery against you?"

Sirius laughed. "Do you ever hold anything against anyone?"

"No," Remus said, and his voice had that delightful lilt it sometimes had when he was amused by something. "Annoying, isn't it?"

As their chuckles dwindled, Tonks shifted again, stopping abruptly when the floorboards beneath her knees creaked. The last thing she wanted was for them to come out to investigate the noise and find her curled around a banister, listening. She barely dared breathe, but as a minute passed and then another without the kitchen door creaking open and their wand lights appearing, she relaxed.

"I'd forgotten how much fun you are when you're in love," Sirius said.

"Who says I'm in love?"

"You do," he said. "Every time you look at her."

Tonks' heart leapt in her chest, any thought of being discovered utterly forgotten. She pressed forward and peered over the edge of the landing to try and see the kitchen door, even though she knew she wouldn't hear any clearer. She tried to swallow, to push her heart back down to its normal position, but it wouldn't budge and stayed lodged in her throat, fluttering wildly.

"Getting sentimental in your old age, Sirius?" Remus said, and his voice danced with something that sounded like, but wasn't quite, she didn't think, amusement.

"Isn't it about time? I found a grey hair the other day for Merlin's sake."

"No sympathy from me on that front, I'm afraid," Remus said, his voice low and droll.

"No," Sirius said, laughing. "A toast. To becoming grumpy old men."

"To growing old disgracefully," Remus returned, and they clinked glasses. One of them, she couldn't tell who, let out a long sigh.

"Do you remember the first time we had Firewhiskey?" Sirius said.

"To be honest, no," Remus said. "I remember drinking the first glass, and then for a while everything's a blur…and then I remember James rolling me over and saying 'do you think he's dead?' and you saying 'I hope not. I need him to help me with my Charms homework', which, at the time I thought was very odd, because you never needed my help with anything."

"Lily gave us such a telling off for letting you get in such a state," Sirius said. "She was halfway through her lecture when you kind of jerked awake and said 'not their fault' and then threw up everywhere. It was the funniest thing. Even she laughed."

"Well I assure you I've come a long way in terms of holding my liquor."

"Which is a shame," Sirius said, "because you always were my favourite drunk. Very entertaining."

"Pour me another one, then," Remus said, "and I'll try my best."

Sirius laughed, and Tonks heard him pour another two, what sounded like, generous measures. "You know, if anyone'd told me when we were 11 that we'd be drinking together – what – twenty-five years later, I'd have thought they were severely Confunded."

"Me too," Remus said. "I hated you."

"You still do, don't you?"

"You've grown on me."

"Like a fungus?" Sirius said.

"Itchy fungus."

Sirius laughed, and Tonks wondered if she'd ever heard him laugh so much in one evening. It was a nice sound, and with the two of them in the kitchen chuckling over reminiscences, the gloomy hallways of Grimmauld didn't seem nearly as grim as they did normally. For once, the place actually seemed like people lived here, that there was life, and not just doom and gloom, within the walls.

"You were such a nice boy," Sirius mused.

"Too nice," Remus said, rather wistfully. "Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me if we hadn't met. I think life probably would have chewed me up and spat me out long ago if you and James hadn't lead me astray."

"Nah," Sirius said. "You always had it in you to be a trouble-maker. You were just more prepared to try not to be than the rest of us. Besides, works both ways."

"How so?"

Tonks stifled a laugh with her fingers. Only Remus would think to use a phrase like 'how so' when drunk.

"I mean, if I hadn't met you, I'd be dead," Sirius said. Tonks frowned, wondering how on earth he'd worked that out.

"Dead?" Remus said, evidently sharing her thoughts.

"Well if I hadn't been friends with you, it would probably never have occurred to me to try and become an Animagus, and if I hadn't done that, I'd have died in Azkaban. So really, when you think about it, you being a werewolf saved my life."

"Now there's a gift that keeps on giving," Remus said dryly, and Sirius' bark of laughter bounded up the stairs to meet her. "I suppose it's about time some good came of it," he added, rather more seriously.

"Suppose. I have been a very bad influence, though," Sirius said.

"No you haven't," Remus said, quietly. "You and James – you convinced me that I was entitled to something more than reading about life in books. Even though I've ended up living a little more life than perhaps I expected or even wanted, I'm very grateful. You've been the very best influence. I'm very glad we met, very glad we're still friends."

"Me too," Sirius said, and they clinked glasses once more. "You think we should call it a night before one of us starts crying?"

"Hmm."

"Are you going to wait until I've gone to sleep and then sneak into Tonks' room?"

"No."

"I know that you've stayed the night at hers," Sirius said. "So there's no point being coy."

"I know you know, and I'm not being coy. She's probably asleep."

"She's probably listening."

Tonks froze, gripping the banister tightly.

"What?" Remus sounded almost as surprised as she was.

"I found one of those Extendable Ears things earlier – you know, they're really something – and, being a good citizen, I handed it over to an appropriate law enforcement officer. She's probably curled up with it on the landing."

"And you didn't think to mention that before because..?"

"I thought she might like to hear what you think of her first hand for a change."

There was a pause, and then Remus said: "You really are the biggest git I've ever met."

"But you love me anyway."

"More fool me."

There was a creak downstairs, and Tonks scrambled to her feet, feverishly winding the fleshy string back into her hands, and bolted for her bedroom. She threw herself into bed without changing into her pyjamas and pulled the covers up over herself, closing her eyes and trying to settle her erratic breathing into a more sleep-like rhythm.

Minutes later, there was a very soft knock on the door, and she opened one eye a crack and saw Remus' head appear at the doorframe. "Tonks?" he whispered, pushing the door open a little further.

She snapped her eye closed again, and for a moment feigned sleep, before she heard a creak of floorboards as Remus moved away, and decided that she should probably confess all. "All right," she said, opening her eyes and looking at him. "I was listening. Sorry."

Remus closed the door behind him and crossed the room, staggering slightly and steadying himself on the bedstead. "It's all right," he said. "Firstly, I didn't say anything that I wouldn't have wanted you to hear, and secondly, I'm so drunk that in the morning I probably won't remember."

She sniggered. "Do you want to get in?"

"What?"

"Do you want to get into bed?" she said.

"Oh," he said. "Is that all right?"

She reached for the covers, but Remus spoke before she had chance to pull them back. "I've still got all my clothes on," he said, with such a look of drunken confusion she wanted to ruffle his hair.

"So have I," she said, pulling back the blankets to show him. Remus nodded. He seemed to think that that made things all right, and took off his new jumper and folded it neatly, placing it carefully on her chair. He perched on the edge of the bed to take his shoes off, before sliding in beside her.

He settled on his back, and stretched his arm out across the pillows, and she shuffled forwards and nestled against his shoulder. "Are you going to be good?" she said teasingly, as he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer and nuzzling her hair. She wasn't entirely sure what she wanted his answer to be.

"I assure you I'm far too drunk to be anything other than a perfect gentleman," he said, his voice drowsy as he kissed her temple.

Tonks turned into his kiss, sliding her hand down his chest and underneath his shirt. "I'm sorry I eavesdropped," she said. "I shouldn't have, but – "

"It's all right," he said, stroking her arm. " Really. I'm just sorry neither of us said anything more interesting to make it worth your while."

Tonks chuckled into his shoulder. She really wouldn't say she hadn't heard _anything_ of interest. Quite apart from the more than really like thing, there was the matter of the list….

"Have you had a good birthday?" she said, trailing her fingertips lightly across his stomach.

"I have had the very best of birthdays," he said, rather too gleefully.

"How much have you had to drink?"

Remus sighed. "No idea," he said. "Too much. We opened another bottle and had about half, so…."

"You should probably be dead."

"In the morning, I daresay I'll wish I was."

"You big drunkard."

Remus grinned and rolled towards her, pressing their bodies together, his hand on her hip, fingers teasing her skin. He kissed her softly and then pulled away, resting on the pillow with a rather glazed expression and a drowsy, lop-sided grin. "Since you're all drunk and compliant," Tonks said, "can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Tonks bit her lip, wondering if she really wanted to know. She knew that she was being a bit unfair, that if he hadn't had all that Firewhiskey – and when it came to it, if she hadn't – she would never have the nerve to ask, but she wanted to know, and now seemed the best Firewhiskey-inspired opportunity to assuage her curiosity. She took a quick steadying breath. "How many girls have you slept with?"

She looked up, meeting his eye tentatively, but he was grinning at her, an intriguing mix of drunkenness and flirtation. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips lingering on her cheek, and then raised an eyebrow at her. All traces of drunkenness disappeared from his expression, leaving only flirtation so acute it made her insides cave. "Enough that I'm fairly certain I know what I'm doing," he said. She bit her lip harder, barely daring to breath. She wanted him to look at her like that forever. And then he let out a soft breath of laughter that may well have been the beginnings of a snigger. "Not so many that I'm utterly convinced," he added, and then his face crumpled as he gave in to a rather drunken giggle and he looked down, before raising his eyes slowly to hers again, his eyebrows squashing together and dipping in amused uncertainty.

She couldn't help but laugh – partly in amusement, and partly because he looked so damn adorable like that. "Good answer," she said.

"Thank you."

He traced the outline of her face for a moment, lingering on her jaw and watching the path of his fingers intently. When he looked up she met his eye, feeling her lips twitch a bit unintentionally into a cheeky smile. "Don't you want to ask me the same thing?" she said.

"Well that depends," Remus replied.

"On what?"

"On what the number is and if it's big enough to make me feel insecure."

Tonks allowed herself a small chuckle. She'd never imagined that Remus might have any such insecurities, even less that he'd admit it. And yet, she found his admission strangely enticing. "How big is big enough to make you feel insecure?" she said.

"I don't know," he said. "I'll know when you tell me and I feel insecure."

"Maybe you'd better not ask, then," Tonks tittered.

"You'd better tell me now," Remus said, poking her admonishingly in the side. "I think I'm drunk enough to take it."

Tonks grinned. "How would you feel if I said thirty?" she said, biting her lip as she raised her eyes to his.

"Like I wasn't quite drunk enough," he said.

"Twenty?"

"Shaky ground."

"Ten?"

"I could probably deal with ten."

"Well it's less than that," she said. "Quite a bit less."

"Good," he said, grinning and toying with the ends of her hair, "because when I said I could probably deal with ten, I was lying."

He shot her an adorably sheepish glance, sniggering at his own admission, and she lifted her hand to his face, lightly stroking his cheek. "You're very lovely," she said, and Remus' smile broadened underneath her fingers.

"Thank you," he said. "But while we're being drunk and honest," he said, " – or while I'm being drunk and honest – could I put in a request for some more manly adjectives?"

"All right," she said. "How about sexy?"

"Better," he said, "even though it's not true."

"What do you mean not true?" she said.

"Oh come on," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm a lot of things, but not sexy."

"You are."

"I'm not," he said. "Sirius is sexy. I'm _nice._ Or docile. Or lovely. Or, on a very good day, with flattering lighting, mildly attractive."

She sighed. "I think you're very sexy," she said indignantly. He made a noise of rather drunken disbelief. "I'm in bed with you, aren't I?"

Remus grinned. "Hmm, yes," he said, shifting closer, drawing his hand up her body to disappear into her hair, "and for the life of me I can't remember why I'm wasting the opportunity arguing about whether I'm sexy or not."

He eased her closer and kissed her, and she sank against him, grateful that he didn't seem at all bothered by her eavesdropping. His fingers ran through her hair, giving her delicious scalp tingles, and then he dropped his hand to her waist, slipping it inside the cardigan she was still wearing and caressing her waist, tracing some pattern she couldn't quite determine over her T shirt. He moved away a little, leaving her lips feeling a little bereft, and trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear before making his way down. "I really am far too drunk for this," he said, chuckling into the crook of her neck, but rather belying his words with actions. He kissed his way back up to her face, letting out the odd drunken chuckle against her skin, and then kissed her affectionately on the nose. He dropped back onto the bed and she turned into his arms and settled against him, giggling along with him as she kissed his neck, his jaw, his cheek.

"Maybe you should sleep it off," she said.

"I think that may be inevitable," he muttered, pulling her closer, and as he sighed, his breath was a warm tickle on her temple. "Do you mind – I mean – is it all right if I stay here?"

She smiled against his shirt collar. "Of course it is. What did you think I was going to do? Kick you out?" She felt his mouth hitch into a smile against her hair.

"Good," he said, "because crawling to my own room now would be a bit undignified, and I fear that's all I'm up to."

She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face so she could look at him properly. Through the darkness, she could just make out the sparkle of his eyes, and she kissed him on the cheek. "Sweet dreams, then," she said, and settled back against his shoulder.

"With you in my arms," he murmured, resting his chin against her forehead, "how could they be anything else?"

Tonks was still smiling when she fell asleep.

She woke up with Remus' arm draped around her waist, her back firmly pressed against his chest. She didn't remember moving, or him curling around her, but she rather liked it, and as she stirred, Remus hugged her to him. She shifted further back into his body, loving how it felt against hers, and then stopped.

Either Remus kept his wand in a place Moody would definitely not approve of, or –

"Remus?" she said, her amusement banishing any early morning grogginess. "Is that...is that what I think it is?"

"Yes," he said, nuzzling the back of her neck.

"Well it's nice to know you're pleased to see me," she said, stifling a laugh not entirely successfully.

"It's an early morning thing," he replied, his voice lilting with amusement. "So don't flatter yourself."

She couldn't resist shifting against him a little, smirking. "And don't do that," he said, arresting the movement of her hips with his hand, "or I'll be forced to do something very ungentlemanly."

She laughed and then glanced over her shoulder to find him grinning. "You seem very chipper," she said, and Remus rolled onto his back, scrubbing his hands over his face and gazing up at the ceiling.

"I think I'm still drunk," he said.

She rolled over to face him and ran her fingers through the hair that was falling into his eyes, delighting in the hopeful spark that inspired. "Good," she said. "I like it when you're drunk."

She pressed her lips to his, tasting sour Firewhiskey on his lips, which she didn't find nearly as off-putting as she knew she should, and slowly drew Remus into a lingering kiss. He didn't seem to mind, and so she gradually shifted on top of him, drawing her legs up either side of his. "So you like it when I'm drunk?" he said, mumbling the words against her lips. When she pulled back far enough to see his face properly, he raised an eyebrow and rested his hands on her hips, tracing faint circles she could barely feel through her jeans.

"Hmm," she said, pressing a kiss just below his ear and making him squirm, just a little bit.

"Because I'm easier to take advantage of?"

"I don't want to be the one to break it to you, Remus, but you never exactly play hard to get."

Remus rolled his eyes and grinned. "I know," he said, and as his hands slipped underneath her T shirt and slid up her back and over her skin, he eased her to him. "I always was a shameful tart."

And as his lips covered hers, she couldn't think of anything except how good his hands felt against her skin, and how much she liked the way he moved beneath her, and how desperately intoxicating his kisses were. She pulled away a little, aware that she was breathing somewhat heavily and kissed his cheek, making her way to nibble his ear. Remus let out a low rumble of approval and shifted to press his lips to her neck.

"Nymphadora!" her alarm shrieked. "Stop dreaming about Remus and get your lazy arse out of bed!"

Tonks stopped. So did Remus. He sniggered quietly against her neck, and Tonks sat up, biting her lip and wincing with embarrassment. "Is there _any_ chance you didn't hear that?" she said, and Remus laughed, his whole body shaking and sending some quite pleasant sensations through her.

"No. Sorry," he said.

"Oh."

For some reason, her 'oh' sent Remus into freshly rapturous peals of laughter, but somehow he still managed to find a way to pull her to him, and having her lips on his seemed to soon make him forget that he'd found anything amusing at all.

"Unhand the werewolf and get to work!"

Remus pulled away, laughing. "You'd better do as the lady says," he said. "She sounds mean. You don't want to make her angry."

"Do I have to?"

She offered Remus a petulant pout, and then whacked her alarm with her wand rather forcefully, as if it was its fault she had to go to work. The alarm offered her a derisory snort, and then fell silent, and Tonks snuggled down onto Remus' chest.

"I thought you had to go to work?" he said softly, his fingers toying with the ends of her hair.

"I've got five minutes," she said, hugging him tighter.

He held her for a moment, and then pulled away a little, dropping his chin onto his chest so he could look at her. "I like this," he had softly.

"What?"

"Waking up with you."

Tonks lifted her head. She'd been about to say something flirtatious and glib about how it was difficult for any wizard not to like a situation that involved having a witch wriggling around on his lap, but his eyes were soft and sincere, and so she settled for a "Me too," and he smiled.

"Last night," he said, lifting an eyebrow. "Did I do or say anything I should know about?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"What do you remember?" she said, and his forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows dipped in thought.

"Not a lot," he said. "I didn't wake up with the desperate urge to apologise, though, which I normally do if I've done something I should know about."

She rolled her eyes, thinking how very Remus it was to wake up with the urge to apologise. "You did – well – you did say that you didn't understand what I see in you."

"Oh well that's true," he said, glancing at the ceiling. "I don't."

"Well," she said, slowly. "It's this."

"What?"

"This," she said, waving over him vaguely, not entirely sure how to explain it. "That's what I see in you."

Remus frowned at her in utter, adorable, befuddlement. "Am I not understanding this because I'm drunk, or for some other reason?" he said, and she laughed.

"I'm not sure I can explain it any other way," she said. "It's you. That's what I see in you. Just you."

"Oh," he said, but the confused crease between his eyebrows remained.

"You haven't the faintest idea what I mean, do you?" she said.

"No," he said. His eyebrows twitched upwards in a helpful, hopeful kind of expression. "I am drunk, though."

She smiled at him and then pulled him in for a kiss, which certainly seemed like something he was more than capable of understanding. "I've got to go to work," she said, with great, aching, reluctance. "Why don't you stay here for a bit?"

Remus murmured his agreement, and reluctantly she slid out of bed, staring down in dismay at her sleep and Remus-crumpled clothes. She was about to collect her things and slink off to the bathroom when Remus caught her hand, turning her back towards him. "Tonks," he said, squeezing her fingers. "Thank you. I had a really lovely birthday."

"Of course you did," she said. "You ended up in my bed with me writhing around on your lap."

Remus laughed quietly. "I mean it," he said, and then grinned. "That was just the icing on the cake."

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and cheered enthusiastically for an upped rating. Today's review bribe is, of course, birthday treats. Romantic Remus lets you give him a gift and writes you a touching thank you note, Sexy Remus starts a food fight with less than honourable intentions, and Mischievous Remus insists on a strip-tease, saying that if you don't, he will ;). **


	15. The Pyjama Game

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Gilpin, for guessing everything that would happen in it months ago ;). **

* * *

Tonks stared at Remus. 

Remus stared back.

She swallowed.

Her eyes roved over his sleep-ruffled hair that stuck up and out in an amazing variety of directions, and then took in the slightly dazed expression he was wearing and his adorable, startled, half-smile.

Then her eyes moved lower, widening a little in delight at the fact that Remus wasn't wearing his usual jumper and shirt, but a well-worn, pale blue, and rather snug T shirt, in which he'd quite clearly slept.

She swallowed again. She thought she should probably say something.

"You have – you have arms."

The sentence Tonks had just uttered hung in the air between them for what seemed like an age – just long enough for Tonks to contemplate how inadequate and stupid a thing it was to say and wish she'd kept her mouth shut, because undignified as the gaping was, it was better than the utterance of idiotic words.

She swallowed again, wondering what might be an appropriate expression for having just encountered her boyfriend, in the hall, in his pyjamas, when she was wearing nothing but a large Weird Sisters T shirt and a pair of knickers which, now she came to think about it, she wasn't entirely sure the T shirt covered.

Remus glanced down at his bare forearms with confusion. "Er, yes," he said. "As a rule."

"No I mean you've got – you've got very –"

She winced at her own conversational ineptitude. She supposed she'd been reduced to the eloquence of a fourteen year old under a _Confundus_ charm because she'd never seen Remus in any kind of state of undress before – normally he had a shirt and a jumper and trousers on at least, and although she'd always known he had arms on the inside, seeing them for herself was….

Well, it was….

She'd never really thought of herself as the kind of girl who had a favourite bit on men – and if she had, she wouldn't have thought arms were up there, but seeing Remus with his forearms just hanging out for anyone to see….

She sighed contentedly, hoping but doubting that she'd done it quietly to herself.

His arms were – well they were – shapely, she thought, and manly, and very, very nice, and as her eyes traced their contours she bit her lip and wondered how she would ever have a coherent thought again, when she knew what lay beneath his sleeves.

Her eyes moved lower, taking in, again, well-worn pyjama bottoms, stripy in a variety of blues. But she didn't think it was the colour that had set her pulse racing. They were tied very loosely on his hips, so loosely she wondered if, if he moved even slightly, they might slip down, revealing an enticing sliver of his stomach, or…. All of sudden, the dark, cold, hallway seemed very, very warm. She wondered if it would be indecorous to fan herself with her hand and looked up, trying to arrest the progress of the heat racing up her body before it got to her face and gave away what she was thinking. But the T shirt clung to his chest, and just above the neck there was a fascinating glimpse of collarbone, which she couldn't help picturing running her tongue over. None of which helped with the arresting process.

She looked up from his chest to find Remus' gaze fixed on a point a little lower than her eyes. She wondered if he was having similar thoughts about her legs, and if he was, it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity. "Are you busy?" she said, and her voice was rather breathier than she expected.

"Not especially," he said, raising his eyes slowly to hers and then swallowing. "I was just – "

She grabbed a fistful of the front of his T shirt, and just registered his eyes widening in surprise before she pulled him to her and kissed him. Her lips seem to have frantic desires of their own, which his, in spite of their initial surprise at her actions, seemed only too happy to fulfil, and as their bodies collided, she raked her hands up over his chest and into his hair, and then dragged him backwards into her bedroom, feeling very, very glad that she'd stumbled out of bed on hearing approaching footsteps, assuming it was Sirius and intending to nag him into making her a cup of tea to wake her up. Remus' kisses, however, were much more rousing than caffeine and made her blood pump furiously in her veins.

"Bloody hell," Remus said as they stumbled a little on the rug just inside the door and parted. "Tonks – what are you – isn't it a bit early for – "

He looked at her for a moment, blinked, and then pulled her back to him and kissed her fiercely, his lips igniting hers as if he'd set off tingling fireworks against them, his hands in her hair. She was vaguely aware of him closing the door with his foot, but anything else she might classify as an actual thought got lost as he shifted closer and kissed her more fervently, rendering everything a wonderful blur of sensation. She took hold of his waist to steady herself as the intensity of his kisses set her body alight, and before she'd really had time to process what was happening, he was taking a couple of steps and steering them both towards the bed. His hands slid down her body, just skirting over her fuscia knickers, and he lowered her onto the still warm, rumpled duvet, settling on top of her, his tongue tracing her bottom lip with far too much poise and tingle-inducing precision for this early in the morning.

They fumbled to re-arrange their tangle of legs, settling for one of his between hers, and for a moment Remus seemed to debate where he should put his hands – but only for a moment, and then his fingers were against the skin of her thigh, and hers were finding their way under his wonderfully soft T shirt and revelling in the warmth of the skin they found underneath. Her body hummed under his touch, butterflies setting up camp in her stomach and flying around wildly, making themselves at home.

As Remus' lips made their way down her neck, Tonks raked her hands through his hair and mumbled "Weren't you going to say something?" even though his lips pressing into the muscles of her neck were very distracting and the words didn't come easily, her breath hitching a little on the word 'say'.

Remus looked up and flashed her a rather devilish smile. "I was," he said, returning to kissing her neck with renewed vigour, making his way back up towards her jaw and making her very glad that he was the one doing the talking, "but then I rather forgot why I was protesting."

He captured her lips again, and his kiss was soft and earnest and perfect, and the way his body was moving against hers left absolutely nothing to be desired and very little to the imagination. His stubble tickled her skin and made it tingle, and his smell slowly unfurled from his body and settled around her. He smelt crisp and delicious and just a hint musky from sleep, and she couldn't help wondering what it'd be like to curl up next to him in his bed and breathe him in all night. At the thought she very nearly dissolved, and she took his face in her hands and pulled his mouth more firmly onto hers as if his kisses were the only thing she could hang onto.

They were utterly lost to sensation for a while, a jumble of hands and lips and low, whispered moans, and it was delicious, inspiring a craving for more that grew in intensity as the moments passed. She positively ached for him.

She wondered if it was possible that he felt what she felt: that every touch was just shy of being enough, that every kiss made him want to do nothing _but_ kiss, that the desperate ache in the pit of his stomach was at once to be savoured and maddening. She shifted against him and wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck, trying to show him with actions what she couldn't say with words, and he let out a low moan against her lips, his fingers trailing up her body, coming to rest on her breast and tracing intoxicating patterns on her T shirt. She shifted against him in approval, letting out a low sigh against his lips and feeling him smile against them.

In the past his hands had brushed her breasts on their way to somewhere else, but he'd never really paid them any proper attention before, and now he was she didn't ever want him to do anything else. His fingers teased and tormented, and she arched into his touch, letting her head fall back onto the pillow and away from his lips as she savoured the way his palm glided and made her breath catch in her chest. He buried his face in the side of her neck, his breath hot on her skin and coming in quick snatches as his fingers teased her through the fabric of her T shirt. She looked down, and the sight of her nipple hardening beneath the taut fabric and his fingers sent a thrill of excitement right through her, causing her stomach to clench, tension to mount in her body, and she slipped her hands further inside his T shirt, letting them make their way over the skin of his back, revelling in the wonderful warmth of his skin, but more than that, the movement of the muscles in his shoulders as his hand continued to move.

She bit her lip, loving what he was doing, but half wondering when he'd stop and pull away, as he always had in the past.

But pulling away didn't really seem like an idea that was particularly close to the surface of Remus' mind. He pressed his hips into hers, and her insides quaked. She couldn't resist the urge to press back, and then, when that wasn't enough, shifted a little and curled one of her legs over his hip, pulling him closer and making the quake deeper.

His hand fell away and started to make its way back up over her thigh, making her skin tingle delightedly in its wake, and this time he didn't stop at the hem of her knickers as he had before, instead, moving over them and under her T shirt, over her hip and up to her ribs, just grazing the underside of her breast with his thumb. She gasped against his mouth; it felt amazing to have his skin against hers. She scrabbled for the hem of his T shirt, started to lift it, and he shifted to accommodate her actions. As she hitched it up his stomach touched hers and –

There was a knock at the door.

They both stopped what they were doing.

Tonks stared at Remus, her eyebrows high on her forehead in surprise.

Remus stared back, his hair pointing in an even greater array of directions, his eyes rather glazed-looking, his startled half-smile still present.

"Tonks? Are you awake, dear? I just wondered if Remus liked his birthday cake."

_Molly. _

Tonks took in the fistful of Remus' T shirt that she had in each hand, Remus' hand under hers, and before she could stop herself, she let out a loud guffaw against Remus' shoulder. His chin trembled with suppressed amusement for a moment, but he couldn't contain it, and he sniggered into the crook of her neck, moving his hand out from where it had been and cradling her face, as if he were trying to smother the noise of his laughter with her hair. But it was far too late. "Is there – is there someone in there with you?" Molly said, her tone intrigued but just tinged with surprise.

Remus pulled away enough for Tonks to see his face. He pressed his lips together, turning them white, but his eyes were shining with a rather charming boyishness, which Tonks – were Molly not standing mere feet away on the other side of the door – would have rewarded with something a lot sexier than the grin she shot him. "Yes," Remus said, his voice lilting with amusement. "And – erm – I liked it very much, thank you."

"Remus?"

"Yes?" Remus said, wincing.

"Nothing. Just – er – checking."

Tonks looked at Remus and just returned his vaguely embarrassed grimace. For the second time that morning, she thought she should probably say something. "Morning Molly," she offered in the general direction of the door, hoping she didn't sound too embarrassed. "Remus and I were just – we were just – " Honestly she didn't know quite what they'd just been doing, but she was sorry they weren't doing it any more. She shot Remus a look which clearly begged for help, but he just grinned and shrugged. "We were just – "

"We'll both be down in a minute, Molly," Remus said, grinning sheepishly.

As Molly's footsteps retreated, Remus glanced at Tonks apologetically and rolled off her, flopping down on the bed. "Well," he said, his voice shaking with laughter. He pulled a pillow out from underneath his head, covered his face with it, and groaned into it. Tonks stifled a giggle, even though she felt every bit as frustrated by Molly's interruption as he did – maybe more, given the exposed expanse of stomach she could see where his T shirt had ridden up with her help.

She swallowed, wondering what it might feel like to press her lips to the inviting skin next to his bellybutton. And then remembered that it was thoughts like that that had lead to this in the first place.

"Is there room for me under there too?" she said, and lifted one corner of the pillow just far enough to make out him raising an eyebrow. She inched underneath the pillow, laughing.

They both stared at the underside of the plain white pillowcase, their breath heating their immediate shared space. "Well I suppose that's us rumbled," Remus said, letting out a drawn out sigh. She shuffled a little closer, her skin prickling at the heat radiating from his body.

"It's your fault," she said. "If you'd just let me get a word in, tell her I was listening to the WWN – "

The pillow rustled as he moved, turning his face to hers, and even through the darkness of their under-pillow environment, she could tell he was playfully glaring at her. "I wasn't _exactly_ thinking straight," he said. He shuffled a bit closer, smiling slightly sheepishly. "And that's definitely _your_ fault. You and your T shirt," he added, tugging the hem of the offending article affectionately.

"My T shirt?" she said, and, wanting to see his face properly, she pulled the pillow off them and threw it further down the bed.

She couldn't resist a grin – she thought she'd probably passed it off as one of enquiry, but mostly it was for the sight of him with his hair falling into his eyes, looking so completely at home on her pillow. He avoided her eyes for a moment, and then let out a short snort of amusement and moved closer. His hands slid round to her back, and he pulled her to him, offering her a rather wicked smile as he did. "Yes."

"Do you have a – it's your thing, isn't it?" she said. "T shirts."

Remus raised an eyebrow, and then looked away again, apparently fascinated by something at the foot of the bed. "Not so much the T shirt," he said, with a rather flirty coy expression she hadn't seen before. "More the fact that I knew you weren't wearing anything underneath it."

"Oh."

Tonks wondered if she was blushing. She really couldn't tell because she felt wonderfully tingly and warm all over, making a flush on her cheeks hard to distinguish from everything else. "There's just something about – " He swallowed " – that. And you do have exceptionally sexy legs." Tonks sniggered and his eyes swung back to hers, mock annoyance jostling for a place in his eyes with amusement. "I don't know why you're laughing," he said. "You're the one who dragged me in here just because I have arms."

"Nice arms," she said, smiling at him in what she hoped was a winning way.

It must have worked because he smiled, any trace of annoyance, mock or otherwise, fading from his features as he leant in to kiss her. His lips were so warm against hers that she couldn't resist the jolt that passed through her and she pressed closer, wondering if it was possible to pick up where they'd left off. But although he kissed her back, he took his time about it, cradling her face in his hands, his lips moving tenderly where they'd been hurried and hungry, and the fire that there had been in her stomach simply smouldered, rather than burning. Eventually he pulled away, and stretched his arm out across the pillow, gesturing for her to snuggle up to him, which she did, resting her head on his shoulder and taking a deep breath of delicious Remus scent.

His arms closed around her and he rested his chin on her forehead, tickling it slightly with his stubble. She wanted to ask him what would have happened if Molly hadn't interrupted them, if he'd changed his mind about taking things further, or if he was just moving things forward in incremental increases, but his shoulder was so warm underneath her cheek and his breathing was so steady and comforting that she couldn't quite bring herself to shatter the moment with conversation.

Tonks thought she probably could have stayed nestled on his shoulder all morning, had her alarm clock not have emitted a pointed snort, drawing her attention to the time. She sighed, noting that she had less than an hour before work, and Remus leant back, raising his eyebrows in question. "I suppose we'd better – " She gestured towards the door, biting her lip with reluctance at the thought. "I've got to go to work. And we did tell Molly we'd be down in a minute about half an hour ago."

"Hmm," Remus murmured, although he didn't look any more pleased about the idea than she was.

Reluctantly, she sat up, feeling instantly chilled now she was out of Remus' embrace, and over her shoulder she saw him do the same, rubbing his hands distractedly over his face. He caught her eye, and offered her a smile that was equal parts hopeful bashfulness and blatant flirtation. She honestly didn't know which she found more appealing. "Would you like to do something tonight?" he said, and Tonks grinned.

"That would be – " she started.

And then she remembered. She clapped her hand to her forehead and Remus eyed her enquiringly. "I can't," she said, wincing at the thought. "My friend's having a housewarming and I said I'd go."

"Oh. Ok."

She couldn't help feeling pleased about the way he looked disappointed, and then tried to hide it. "I'd cancel, but I haven't seen her for ages," she said, trying to keep the echoed disappointment she felt out of her voice and, she suspected, failing.

"It's fine," Remus said, and the bed springs creaked as he got to his feet. "We'll do something next week."

Tonks felt her insides droop in chagrin, but then the early prickling of an idea started to form at the edges of her sleep and Remus-fuddled brain. She wasn't sure if it was a good one or not, but she let the words out of her mouth before she had chance to decide it wasn't, or chicken out. "I mean – well, you could come, if you wanted," she said. She bit her lip and glanced at him, hoping that she didn't look too eager for him to say yes.

"To meet your friends?"

"Hmm," she murmured, wondering if she should read his eyes widening as fear and horror at the very thought, or surprise. "Well, friend. It's Steph. The one I told you about."

Remus grinned, leaving no doubt that it was surprise in his eyes, and as the butterflies in her stomach returned she was glad she was the impulsive sort who let out un-fully-formed thoughts occasionally. "I'd like that," he said.

"Ok, then," she said. "Meet here later?"

Remus nodded, still grinning. "I'd better go and get dressed," he said, waving vaguely at his pyjamas, "before Molly starts banging on the door and demanding to know what's keep us. And I'm really not dressed for breakfast."

Tonks laughed, but as soon as the door had closed behind him, she flopped back on the bed, pulled the pillow she'd discarded earlier over her face, and groaned into it. Evidently Remus found Molly as good a cold shower as Sirius.

She gave herself over to a couple of minutes groaning and indulgent daydreaming about what might have happened if Molly hadn't interrupted them, and then got up, choosing a sensible-ish turquoise T shirt and black V neck that would do for work, and pulling on the jeans she'd abandoned on the floor the night before as she'd crawled, exhausted, into bed.

When she was ready, she headed downstairs, pushing open the kitchen door to find Sirius sitting at the table with his head in his hands, and Molly demonstrating the proper warming charm he should use on a cottage pie that skulked on the table. Sirius looked up hopefully when she entered, mouthing a couple of words which may or may not have been 'save me', but she ignored him, her eyes fixed on Remus as he prepared two mugs of tea at the stove. He met her eye over his shoulder and held her gaze for a moment, before letting an intoxicating smile slowly take over his mouth.

Heart pounding keenly, she crossed the room – ignoring Sirius' plaintive gaze as Molly told him to be careful not to over-heat and singe the mashed potato – to Remus' side, looking up at him as he turned to offer her her 'I hate work' mug, wondering why she felt so shy, when minutes ago she'd been prepared to do much more intimate things with him than accept a drink.

"Well," Molly said, as they both sipped their tea, exchanging askance glances and smiles of increasing depth and lessening coyness, "I think that's everything. Now are you sure you don't want me to Floo later and talk you through – "

"I'll be fine, Molly," Sirius said, his voice rent with irritation that sounded as if it had been well and truly worn down.

"Right," she said. "Well any problems – " Sirius glowered.

"You really don't have to keep bringing us food, Molly," Remus said softly. "You've got enough on your plate without worrying about feeding us."

"Nonsense," Molly said, waving his objection away. "It's no trouble and I like to do what I can. You could all do with a few square meals, and I daresay you're too busy – " Sirius bristled and her eyes darted to him and then widened a little in horror at her faux pas. " – or – "

She faltered, and met Tonks' eye, clearly annoyed with herself and not knowing quite how to extract herself from the conversational hole she'd dug. Tonks thought about leaping in with something random, but her brain was far too warm and fuzzy from her Remus-shaped early morning wake-up call, and she couldn't quite think of anything. "Anyway," Molly said, taking a deep breath, "you don't need to be worrying about cooking."

Remus smiled and nodded in acquiescence, taking a sip of his tea while Molly bustled about the kitchen, gathering her cloak and things. "Remus, dear, I wonder if I might borrow you for a moment?" she said, not quite meeting his eye. Remus' eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Just a quick word, while you walk me out?"

She'd phrased it as a polite request, but there was something in her tone that made it sound as if she certainly wouldn't brook any non-compliance, and Remus nodded in vague, if rather puzzled, agreement, and set his mug down on the table while Molly donned her cloak and bid them both goodbye. As they ascended the steps, Remus shot Tonks a quick, baffled glance. She shrugged in return, assuming Molly wanted to quiz him about exactly how much he liked his cake and possibly offer him the recipe.

When the door had closed behind them, Sirius muttered something involving the words 'bloody woman', 'can take care of myself', 'on the run all last year' and 'perfectly fine', but she couldn't be bothered to pay him enough attention to discern more than the most basic of meanings. She thought the way he was glowering at the doorway with his brow furrowed probably said it all anyway.

Tonks took her tea and sank down into a chair at the table, taking a sip, and Sirius met her eye, grinning, any trace of his Molly-inspired glower gone. "So," he said, leaning back in his chair. "You and Moony."

She raised an eyebrow, thinking that she had a horrible sense of déjà vu. "Is this going to be another one of your big brother chats?" she said, blowing on the surface of her tea.

"Yes, I thought so," Sirius said, looking mildly affronted that she'd fathomed his plan.

"Let's get it over and done with, then," she said, folding her arms and eyeing her cousin with irritation she didn't really feel. It was hard to be irritated by anything when she'd had such an agreeable start to the morning and Remus had made her tea exactly how she liked it.

Sirius eyed her in consideration for a moment, the briefest hint of a smile playing on his lips. She wasn't sure whether she should be worried about how much pleasure he apparently took in these little chats, or pleased that he wasn't moping about the place, ranting at or about Kreacher and looking for the gin. "Molly said you two were in bed."

"Molly's right," Tonks said, bristling slightly. "And if you're going to give me some kind of not under my roof spee – "

"You make him happy."

Sirius words cut her off mid-flow, and for a moment she was so intent on finishing her rant about how they'd just go to her place if he had any objections, and so surprised that it wasn't necessary, that she didn't know quite what to say. "What?" she said, wondering if the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat was her heart.

"You make him happy," he said. "Just – keep doing it."

"Doing what?" she asked, only able to summon a little more voice than a whisper.

"Whatever it is you're doing that puts that smile on his face."

"What smile?"

"You know the one," Sirius said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "It's part hopeful puppy, part romantic hero and just ever so slightly tinged with desperation."

Tonks grinned. Even though she hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about, she knew it was something to be very, very pleased about.

And yet, she couldn't quite believe what he was saying. It seemed unreal, somehow, that someone like her would be able to make someone like Remus happy. "I don't think I'm really responsible – "

"Yes you are," he said.

"No, I really – "

"I know you can't see it, but I can," Sirius said quietly, and it was his quietness, more than his words, that quashed her argument.

Tonks nodded, and took another sip of her tea to try and quell the rising nervous excitement in her stomach. Sirius thought she made him happy. She wondered why that set off fireworks in her stomach, and before she could really think about the consequences, the words were out of her mouth: "Do you think he – "

She stopped herself, wondering if this wasn't a conversation she should be having with Remus instead, although how she'd ever find the words for that, she didn't know. Sirius raised his eyebrows in question, and she swallowed, and decided to continue, because ever since she'd overheard their conversation on Remus' birthday, the strength and depth of Remus' feelings – and indeed her own – had been very much on her mind. In fact she'd thought of very little else, and when her mind had managed to fix on a different subject, it had always been there in the background, and she knew it would be until she had an answer to the question. "Do you think he loves me?"

Sirius smiled warmly, and, for a moment, she could see the man he used to be – the charmer, who had his pick of girls and friends, and would have had anything the world had to offer, had fate not intervened so cruelly. "I don't think it," Sirius said. "I know it."

Tonks felt her stomach erupt into a series of congratulatory explosions, which she tried to calm, because after all, as well as he knew Remus, Sirius could be wrong. She thought she should save some internal fireworks for when – or if – she heard it from the man himself, instead of letting them all off prematurely now. Although that was much easier said than done.

"When I came back," Sirius said, drawing her out of her thoughts, "and I saw him, and we both decided to live here, I wondered what it'd be like. He's not had an easy life, and a lot of that's my fault – I wondered if he'd be angry, or bitter, or resentful."

"Was he?" Tonks asked, interested to know the answer, even though she wasn't entirely sure how it pertained to what they were talking about.

"I don't know," Sirius said, shaking his head in a slightly bemused fashion. "He met you – and if he was angry, or bitter, or resentful, it disappeared and he was just – _him_. I think he feels like he's living for the first time in a very long time. And you – " He cleared his throat. "You really couldn't do better."

She smiled to herself because recently, she really had been thinking the same thing. "I know," she said quietly.

"So you do..?" he said, leaving the question unfinished, his hopeful raised eyebrows filling in the blanks.

Tonks thought about it for a moment, but it wasn't something that really required thought so much as focus on what she was feeling, what she'd felt for a while, but had been too nervous to put a word too. She nodded.

Sirius grinned.

Tonks bit her lip, expecting teasing, or questions – for him to press the matter in some direction and make her wish she hadn't said anything, but he just leant back in his chair, surveying her carefully for a moment, and when he spoke he was jovial, but not teasing. "See?" he said. "These big brother things aren't _that _painful, are they?"

She laughed into her mug, and Sirius leaned further back in his chair, regarding her with amusement. "I'm a bit offended you thought I was going to give you the 'not under my roof' speech, actually," he said, and Tonks let out a short snort of amusement. "Who do you think I am? My mother?"

"Mine, more like," she said, and he laughed.

"Well you're both more than welcome to do whatever you like under my roof, for as long as you like – as long as one or the other of you resurfaces once in a while for a chat to keep me from going completely barking."

"Oh well I think it's too late for that," she said, gesturing to the cottage pie on the table. "I mean you've evidently forgotten how to perform a rudimentary food heating charm – "

Sirius glowered at her across the table, and she laughed, half at the look on his face, and half at the thought of the kind of things she might like to do under Sirius' roof with Remus.

Her laughter was abruptly arrested by the creak of the kitchen door as it opened, and Remus appearing on the stairs.

He was white.

Then grey.

Then a little bit green.

Tonks abandoned her tea, leapt to her feet and dashed to his side as he reached ground level. "What's the matter?" she asked searching his face for clues as to what might be wrong. Had someone sent a message? Had something happened? Was it Harry?

"I just – Molly just – it was awful."

"Is she OK?"

"She's fine – but I on the other hand could use a sit down."

Remus' eyes widened in horror, and Tonks took his arm and steered him to the table, pressing on his elbow until he sank down into a chair. She slid the mug of tea he'd abandoned before his chat with Molly across the wood towards him, and sank into the chair next to him, not allowing the relief she felt on the very brink of giving into to surface until she knew exactly what had gone on. "What happened? Did she find another boggart?"

"No, nothing like that," he said quickly. "She just – well – "

"Oh spit it out, Moony," Sirius said, eying Remus with amused irritation. "You didn't even stammer this much when we told you we'd figured out your furry little problem."

Remus glowered at Sirius for a moment, and Sirius took out his wand and _Summoned_ the biscuit barrel, reaching inside for a jam tart and then offering the tin across the table to them both. Tonks noted with amusement that his irritation with Molly's mothering didn't extend as far as boycotting her food. She shook her head and Remus balked at the very idea, waving the tin away. Sirius sucked the lemon curd out of its pastry case, and gestured for him to continue.

Remus swallowed audibly. "She – well – Molly wanted to talk to me about – about – " He leant heavily on his hand, burying his forehead in his palm and staring down at the table. "Oh dear Merlin," he muttered.

Sirius leant forward, regarding Remus with interest across the tabletop. "About what?" he said, and Remus met his eye from underneath a not inconsiderable amount of stray fringe. "Whatever it is," Sirius said, "it can't be that bad."

"Want a bet?" he said.

After a moment, Remus sat back in his chair, running a hand through his hair and then crossing his arms, giving him the air of an irritated schoolboy. "She talked to me about my responsibility as a man," he said, and his tone was arid.

"Your _what_?" Sirius said, stifling a laugh with some difficulty and nearly choking on his jam tart. Tonks placed a hand on Remus' arm and met his eye enquiringly, raising her eyebrows at him in the expectation of explanation.

Remus swallowed hard, but less audibly than he had before. "She just wanted to let me know that if we're – " He gestured loosely between them and then closed his eyes in a brief wince. "I believe the phrase she used was 'taking things to a significantly more intimate level' – that I had certain _responsibilities_."

"You mean she gave you the contraception charm talk?" she said.

"Oh no," he said, with a dry, humourless chuckle. "She tried to, and I told her that I'd actually had that one from my dad when I was thirteen and that as a fully qualified wizard I was more than up to performing it. In retrospect I probably should have let her finish that one rather than – rather than – "

He stared at her unblinkingly, horror written across every millimetre of his face. Sirius laughed. "Oh Moony, no," he said, and Remus met his eye and offered him a smile that was more of a grimace than anything else, and Sirius responded by laughing uproariously.

"What?" Tonks said. "What on earth did she talk to you about?"

"Well," he said, closing his eyes briefly. "You."

"What about me?" Tonks said, leaning back in surprise and a little annoyance.

"She – it was – "

"Come on, Remus," she said, shifting in her seat, "I'm dying of curiosity here."

"You have no idea what I've just been through," he said, dropping his chin and glowering at her only semi-playfully.

"And I never will unless you tell me what she said."

Remus let out a deep breath, and then took another, as if steeling himself for something. "_Apparently_," he said, lips twitching with either amusement or irritation, "I have a responsibility, as a man, to make sure that you – I believe the phrase was – '_have a nice time too_'."

Tonks covered her mouth with both hands to try and keep her peal of laughter from ringing out around the kitchen. It didn't work. In fact, when it escaped from between her fingers, it was a guffaw, but Sirius was laughing so loudly that she wasn't even sure anyone had heard it. "Which I assure you was news to me," he added dryly, raising an eyebrow at her.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't know what _to_ say," he said, sighing exasperatedly. "Other then giving her a list of names of girls she could contact for a reference, I wasn't sure there was anything I _could_ say. I thought it was best just to let her finish."

Tonks laughed harder, clinging to the edge of the table to stop herself from falling off her chair. "Did you not tell her I already had this covered?" Sirius said, and Remus fixed him with a perplexed frown.

"What?"

"Well I bought you that book, didn't I?"

"Ah, yes," Remus said, looking down at the table as realisation dawned and tracing a groove in the wood with his fingernail.

"Well if you've read that – "

"Oh I have," Remus said sarcastically, "cover to cover."

" – you should be fine. Maybe if you'd shown her that you knew what you were talking about – "

"Forgive me, Padfoot," Remus said, "for not wanting to talk advanced love-making positions with Molly Weasley. I may never be able to look Arthur in the face again as it is."

Sirius met Tonks' eye, and neither of them could resist blurting out their amusement. Their laughter rang through the kitchen for a couple of minutes, with Remus' glare switching between them, but getting less and less intense as the moments passed, and eventually he cracked and smiled. When Tonks felt able to form words, she leant forward inquisitively, thinking that if she'd known what Molly wanted to borrow Remus for, she'd have tried to morph into one of the stuffed elf heads, or concealed herself behind the troll's leg umbrella stand so she could witness it first hand. "What did she say?"

"Mostly," he said, "mostly it was practical advice. At one point," he said, voice quivering slightly, "I thought she was going to draw me a diagram."

Sirius roared with laughter and rocked back in his chair, wiping tears of mirth dramatically from his eyes. "Anything useful?" he asked, and Remus glowered at him again, causing Tonks to let out another guffaw.

"It's a good job she didn't get to me before I lost my virginity," he said, running his hand through his hair. "I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to go through with it."

"Pretty frightening?"

"If that's the talk she gave to her sons," he said, "I'd be very surprised if any of them had dared to do it at all."

Remus took a long drink of his tea, and then ran his hand through his hair again, looking a bit more poised when he sank back in his chair than he had done in the previous minutes. "I'm sorry she collared you," Tonks said.

"Oh you will be," he said, his eyes glinting with mischief. "I told her that, since you're so very young and innocent, you might appreciate a few pointers yourself to boost your confidence."

As Sirius' bark of laughter echoed through the kitchen, Tonks felt her face fall. He wouldn't.

Would he?

She met his eye, and the look in them was impish, telling her that she couldn't be at all certain that the next time she saw Molly she wouldn't hear things that made her wish she'd gone deaf. Knowing her luck, she wouldn't be able to stop Molly drawing a diagram.

Remus bit his lip and grinned at her wickedly. "Now," he said, "shouldn't I be walking you to work? I wouldn't want you to be late."

She raised an eyebrow at him in displeasure that wasn't entirely playful, and he sniggered and looked away. "Come on," he said, getting to his feet and taking her hand. "You can glower at me on the way."

They Apparated to the Ministry, and then walked to the post box on the corner where it had become their custom to say goodbye. He kissed her a little longer and more intently than he normally did when he walked her to work, melting away any irritation at what he may or may not have said to Molly. Commuters tutted as they passed, but she didn't care, because she loved having him walk her to work and a great kiss to savour the memory of all day.

And today she had more than one. She wondered how on earth she'd get any work done, and even before she'd reached her desk, she was counting the minutes until she saw him again.

* * *

**   
A/N: Long time coming, I know, and nothing really happens in this because it's mostly set up for the next chapter…. But to make up for it, I'm planning to have the next chapter up next week…. Thanks for all the reviews for the last chapter, and anyone kind enough to leave one for this one gets an early morning wake-up call of their choosing. Remus will deliver either coffee or tea, or you could just make do with kisses ;). **

** If anyone fancies a large dose of festive Remus/Tonks, please head on over to MetamorficMoon at LJ (there's a link to my page in my profile, and you can find it from there) for the Christmas Moon Fic Advent – fic posting starts on Dec 1st. **


	16. Dancing In The Dark

For Tonks, the time between bidding Remus goodbye a little way away from the Ministry and seeing him again back at Grimmauld couldn't pass quickly enough. She was glad the day was a frantic blur of largely drama-free investigations – at least it passed quickly, leaving her too little free time to worry about what Steph might make of Remus, and what Remus might make of her friends and the kind of parties they threw – or to ponder the admission she'd made to Sirius that morning and panic about whether he would have said anything.

She frowned at the thought, watching her forehead wrinkle in the mirror, but it didn't last long because, for all his Motor-mouth Black tendencies, Sirius had never told Remus anything she'd told him in confidence, and apart from anything else, she thought it was more his style to sit back and watch the whole thing unfold, rather than pushing things along.

She flashed her hair through a range of different mauves and pinks to go with the purple top she'd chosen, finally settling on fuchsia, smoothing down the front of her top and wondering if the neck was too low and the split up the back too revealing. She grinned at the thought, and then couldn't resist a quick sigh at the thought of Remus' fingers travelling up and down her spine against her skin.

The mirror tutted, and Tonks rolled her eyes at it, trying to clear the swirling images of fingers and spines from her mind and quell the churning in her stomach that just thinking about how it might feel caused. After a final look in the mirror, she went downstairs.

She found Remus leaning against the table, his hands in his pockets, wearing the jumper she and Sirius had bought him for his birthday. He looked positively, devilishly, sexy in it, which didn't do anything to quell the churning, although she couldn't say in all honesty that she minded, since a little churning was a small price to pay. His eyes lit up and widened a little as he took her in, and the butterflies in her stomach that had been dormant all day leapt into spectacular action. "Wotcher," she said, and he stepped forward and looped his fingers around hers, sending expectant shivers right through her.

"You look – " He swallowed as his eyes took an appreciative pass over her.

"Nice?" she offered, biting back a grin.

He raised his gaze slowly to hers, and his eyes flashed with such fiery flirtation that her insides flipped right over. "I was going to say ravishing," he said, hoarsely, and then pulled her to him, kissing her ardently.

His lips on hers instantly made her forget that they were in Grimmauld's less than salubrious kitchen as she became completely immersed in the idea of returning his enthusiasm, and as he pulled her closer and his fingers trailed up and down her spine, it felt every bit as good as she'd thought – hoped – it would.

It was a far more involved and passionate kiss than the ones they usually said hello with, but Tonks couldn't really say she minded, and the groaning sigh Remus let out against her lips before he pulled away made her breath catch in her throat.

"Are you aware your top has no back to it?" he said, his eyes dancing with amusement, and something else entirely. She glared at him playfully.

"It does have a back," she said, spinning round to show him that the top had shoulders and at least five inches of fabric over her shoulder blades, and another two or three at her waist, if not a lot in between. "It's not my fault you've got wandering hands and they happened to find their way inside."

She turned back, smiling at him with entirely false coyness, and Remus looked away, pressing his lips together as if he was in the midst of a bashful schoolboy moment. "We'd better get going," he said, his voice low, amused, and just a little hoarser than usual. "I wouldn't want you to be late."

"You're very concerned about my tardiness today," she said, and he swallowed.

"Hmm," he murmured, although the look in his eyes said he was thinking something else entirely, and the hitch in his voice as he suppressed a laugh only confirmed it.

The party was in more than full swing when they arrived. Steph's new house was on a reasonably smart street – tree-lined and dotted with old fashioned street lamps, and the place itself looked reasonably promising – a semi-detached not dissimilar to the one Tonks had grown up in.

Tonks met Remus' eye, seeing what he thought, but as he opened his mouth to say something, the front door banged open and a blonde girl sporting a 'Make cows not war' T shirt stumbled through the doorway and threw up in the flowerbed.

Remus raised an eyebrow and muttered something about that feature probably not making it into the Estate Wizard's report, and Tonks chuckled as they stepped around her carefully and up into the hall.

Inside, the tastefully decorated cream hallway heaved with people in various stages of inebriation. The faint thunk of a bass line from the lounge rattled the round, paper light shade above, and when someone opened the door they both took a blast of music to the face. Tonks offered Remus a faint grimace of apology, which he accepted with a smile, and suggested that they go and get a drink.

Tonks looked about for someone she recognised as she made her way through the throng towards the kitchen, saying hello to a couple of people she recognised from school but didn't really know well enough to stop and chat to. They stepped over a lanky, mousy-haired bloke in a yellow T shirt who was sprawled across the carpet and laughing at his own feet, and into the bright kitchen, where a small group had assembled around the collection of bottles and an array of snack food on the counter. Two blokes Tonks recognised vaguely from Hogwarts were throwing peanuts at each other, but beyond them she spotted Steph's frizzy blonde hair and shouted her name, giving her a quick hug as she turned.

"Tonks!" she said breathily. "I didn't think you were going to come."

"Wouldn't have missed this," she replied as she pulled back, eying the crisps trodden into the carpet beneath her feet and the empty bottles that littered the kitchen surfaces, "the destruction of your first home."

Steph shrugged. "Looks worse than it is," she said, and then frowned. "I hope." Steph's eyes turned to Remus, and Tonks glanced at him, finding him wearing a warm smile she hoped wasn't too forced. Steph's eyes roved over him appraisingly, and then she met Tonks' eye and raised a thin, arched eyebrow. "Yours?"

Tonks bit back a laugh, and at her side, Remus sniggered. "Remus," he said, extending his hand, and Steph took it, eyeing him carefully.

"This is Steph," Tonks said.

"Nice to meet you."

Steph met Tonks' eye and raised her eyebrow again, although whether it was in question or approval, Tonks couldn't quite tell. "Well, you two need some drinks, by the looks of things," she said, gesturing to their empty hands, and reached for a couple of Butterbeers from the surface. She uncorked them, not troubling to pick the corks up from the floor where they dropped, and handed them one each, clinking her glass of violently red liquid against them. "Cheers. Welcome to my humble abode," she said, waving vaguely at the kitchen.

There was a vague crash and a wail of 'sorry!' from the room off the kitchen, and Steph winced. "Was it that vase my mother bought me?" she shouted in the direction of the wail.

"Ermmm… yes, I think so," came the reply.

Steph rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Are you not going to go in and _Reparo_ it, or at least hex whoever smashed it, or something?" Tonks said.

"No," Steph said. "I hated that vase." She flashed them both a grin, and Tonks couldn't help but return it, because it was great to see her again. "Would you like the tour while there's still something left to see?" she said, and Tonks nodded.

Steph picked her way through the kitchen and they followed, and found themselves in what would have been a nice, smart dining room, were the table not littered with abandoned Butterbeer bottles, and the carpet suspiciously crunchy under foot.

They made a cursory pass through the hall, where Steph was apparently planning to put some antique portraits, and then up the stairs, where Remus made appropriate cooing noises about the bathroom that Tonks knew would win him points with Steph. She opened the bedroom door with a flourish. "And this is my room," she said. "Isn't it fab?"

Tonks grinned and nodded – it was all done in jewel colours and achingly Steph. "And I don't expect to find you in here at some point shagging under a pile of cloaks," Steph said, pointing at Tonks accusingly as she closed the door. "Steph!"

"What?" Steph said, leaning on the doorframe, her eyes full of mock innocence. "I know what you're like at parties. You get a couple of drink in you, and…."

Tonks felt a blush creep over her cheeks, and tentatively met Remus' eye. He raised an eyebrow at her in question, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. "Do go on," he said.

"We used to call her two pints Tonks," Steph said, and Tonks covered her face with her hands, groaning quietly into her fingers. "Because after that she'd either be face down somewhere laughing at nothing, or doing something spectacularly stupid."

"Really?" Remus said, eyes twinkling mischievously. "Like what?"

"Do you remember that night in the Swan and Rushes?" Steph said, and Tonks grimaced. Steph ignored her expression, her silent plea for mercy, and looked up at Remus, a grin threatening to break out all over her face. "She had a couple of shots of some new liquor they were doing – made by monks, or something – and when we got up to leave, she lost her footing and fell down the stairs – showed her knickers to the entire place."

Tonks glowered at Steph, although it was a little half-hearted, because the look in Remus' eyes said that he didn't really mind hearing tales of his girlfriend's drunken debauchery. "Were they nice knickers?" he said.

"Red and lacy, as I recall."

Remus nodded in consideration and then approval, and Tonks battled a snigger. "She could barely hear us laughing at her through all the wolf whistles," Steph said.

"I can't believe you told him that," she said, even though she could.

"Well I always say there's no point meeting your girlfriend's friends if you don't get at least one amusing drunken story out of them," Remus said. "And besides," he added, dropping his chin and peering up at her through his fringe, "you are talking to the man who fell off a table in The Grinning Kneazle because he was trying too hard to dance like Joni Mitchell."

Tonks sniggered. She supposed that was a very good point and there was every chance they were as bad as each other.

After a short glance into the guest bedroom – where Steph's younger brother was making good use of his bed privileges with a girl Steph said he'd been after for months – they edged down the stairs, stepping around a couple who were presumably seeing which one of them could be the first to extract the other's tonsils with their tongue, and found a spot in the hall that was unoccupied by either snogging couples, people throwing peanuts in the air to catch in their mouths, or groups trying to guess the track from the bass line permeating the hallway through the lounge door.

They chatted for a while about nothing in particular, but Remus was utterly charming, asking Steph all the right getting-to-know-you questions without it seeming at all as if that was what he was doing, and answering hers equally deftly, even though they were a thinly veiled and rather blatant attempt on Steph's part to suss out whether or not he was suitable, which Tonks had no doubt whatsoever that he saw straight through. Subtlety had never been Steph's strong suit, but Remus was far too polite to let on that he knew exactly what she was doing, and as he answered he made Steph laugh, or smile, and by the end of her inquisition, Tonks was sure he had her pretty much wrapped around his little finger.

She envied Remus his easy manners, the way that chatting to people came so easily to him that he didn't feel the need to show off or draw attention to himself, that he was just content to slowly reveal a little of who he was and really listened to what people said. It gave her stomach tingles to think he was making an effort with someone for her, that because she liked Steph he wanted her to like him, and as Steph laughed at his joke about ground-up-peanut-in-carpet removal spells, she couldn't help wondering what Steph thought of him.

Luckily, she didn't have to wait long for an opportunity to get Steph alone and find out, and as Remus gestured to their empty bottles and offered to fetch them something else to drink, she leant in and lowered her voice. "So what do you think?" Tonks said, quickly, her eyes darting to the kitchen, where Remus was pouring them all a glass of some violently blue cocktail and sharing a joke with the bloke in the yellow T shirt who had apparently stopped finding his feet hilarious and had moved on to marvelling at a bowl of dry-roasted peanuts.

"He's foxy," Steph said, and Tonks laughed, although she couldn't deny that it pleased her to have her friend find Remus attractive. "He's a bit older than your usual."

"Hmm," she murmured, although these days, she never really thought about that. Aside from the odd moment when he'd mention something that she didn't understand, some cultural reference she wasn't privy to – or she mentioned some hot new band that he said sounded like a disease – she didn't really think about it at all. Her gaze drifted down the hallway and fixed on Remus. He really did look sexy in that jumper.

Steph flashed Tonks a rather knowing smile. "I thought you were over that whole bad boy phase," she said, and Tonks rolled her eyes.

"One bloke isn't a phase," she said tersely, and Steph eyed her entirely disbelievingly, twisting a curl around her finger. "Anyway," Tonks said, "Remus isn't like that."

"No?"

"No. I mean he's older but – well, you know, there's nothing wrong with him."

Steph's disbelieving gaze didn't falter, but she let the matter drop along with her curl, and Tonks let out a relieved sigh, glad she didn't have to try and find a way to tell her friend that the reason Remus wasn't already taken was that he had a furry little problem a lot of women might find off-putting. "Is it true what they say about older men?" she said, dropping one shoulder onto the wall.

"What?"

"That they're y'know, better in bed?"

Tonks laughed, but couldn't stop a slight blush from forming on her cheeks, although whether it was from the words Steph had uttered, or her mind choosing that moment to replay some choice images from their encounter that morning in glorious detail, she wasn't entirely sure.

She gave it a moment's thought, coming to the conclusion that she suspected it was mostly the latter, although she couldn't say that the other thought hadn't crossed her mind….

"I'll let you know," she said, and Steph's eyes widened.

"You haven't..? But I thought he said you'd been together since Christmas?"

"We have," she said, and Steph's brow creased into a puzzled frown. "I told you. He's – I don't know – old fashioned – a gentleman, I suppose."

Steph raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about a gentleman," she said, "but he must be bloody mad. You look drop dead sexy in that top."

Tonks grinned. She'd hoped that she did, and Remus' eyes had certainly seemed a little too wide when they'd first settled on her that evening….

"Is it driving you mental?" Steph said. "His gentlemanly tendencies?"

"No," Tonks said, biting back a laugh and looking down at the carpet, letting her hair swing forwards a bit to cover her face and hopefully her blush. "Well, yes," she admitted " – but in a really nice way."

"Well you seem…." Steph trailed off into a shrug, waving vaguely in Tonks' direction as if the gesture could say more than the words she couldn't find.

"I'm happy," she said. "I really like him."

"Well it's about time," Steph said, cocking her head. "I don't suppose he's got a friend who's dashing and charming, and, by the looks of all the furniture I'm going to have to throw away, rich?"

Tonks laughed, thinking immediately of Sirius, and picturing the look on Steph's face if she knew that she and the most notorious criminal of the century had shared jam tarts as recently as that morning. "Actually he does," she said, "and I did hear he was in the market for a twenty-something blonde." Steph's eyebrows inched up hopefully. "He doesn't get out much, though," Tonks added, stifling a laugh as Steph's face dropped into a slack-jawed glower.

"Tease. So what's your plan?" Steph said, jerking her head in Remus' general direction. "Get him drunk tonight, flaunt your boobs and seduce him?"

"No," Tonks said, and Steph peered at her in question. "I tried that. He's annoyingly good at holding his drink."

She looked up just in time to see Remus approaching, clutching three plastic glasses of electric blue liquid that looked like something that would be more at home in St Mungo's Experimental Potions lab than being offered to innocent bystanders at a party. She tried to think of something to say as he approached, some way to cover that she and Steph had been talking about him, but Remus' eyes twinkled as they met hers, and she knew that he probably knew, and wouldn't be fooled by whatever she came up with, so she decided not to bother.

He handed the first glass to her, and then the second to Steph, raising his at them both in toast. "To your new home and all who sail in her," he said, tapping his glass against Steph's. "Cheers."

He raised his glass to his lips, and they did the same. Tonks took a sip, and then immediately wished that she hadn't as her palate was assailed by a range of different tastes and after-tastes, none of them pleasant. "What in hell's name is this?" she said, grimacing at the slight burning sensation on her tongue the drink had left in its wake.

"No idea," Remus said, grinning and taking a sip of his drink. He held back a grimace of his own with apparent difficulty, swallowing hard. "But I didn't want you accusing me of being unadventurous when it came to beverages again," he said, his voice a little croaky, his eyes watering slightly.

"Well this certainly fits the bill," Tonks said, eyeing the liquid in the glass with disdain.

"I couldn't find a cherry," he said, meeting her eye and smiling.

Tonks grinned at him as Steph's eyes switched between them, her forehead creased in confusion, but Tonks didn't really want to elucidate. She liked having private jokes with him far too much to let anyone else in. She couldn't resist a quiet sigh. At once it seemed impossibly long ago and like just yesterday that they'd gone out together for the first time. Steph nudged her with her elbow to jolt her out of her daydream, and she shook herself free of it.

"What is this, anyway?" Tonks said, gesturing to her glass. "It better not be one of those potions you used to concoct to spice up the post-Quidditch parties."

Remus raised an eyebrow in what Tonks thought might well be professorial – or Marauder – intrigue, she wasn't quite sure which. "Steph used to – "

"_We_ used to," Steph corrected. "_I_ could hardly have morphed into Professor Sprout to sneak into the greenhouses and steal the necessary plant material."

Tonks cleared her throat, but Remus glanced at her, his eyes dancing with amusement at the tale, and gestured for Steph to go on. "We used to make this stuff that tastes of Butterbeer – well you can make it taste of anything, really – but when you drink it, it makes you act on impulse for a little while – "

"And obviously after the Quidditch, everyone'd be in high spirits," Tonks said, "so they'd all blame it on that – "

" – and we used to take it in turns to slip it to people and see what happened, if we were right about who they fancied, or who they hated – "

"Do you remember the time Gryffindor played Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor won – "

"But everyone on our team thought there'd been a dodgy reffing decision, so they were seething – "

"So we slipped some to everyone on both teams – "

"And there was a massive brawl in the Great Hall – "

They both grinned at the thought. "Charlie Weasley threw a whole dish of sprouts at Kevin the Hufflepuff seeker – caught him right in the face and knocked him out," Tonks said, meeting Remus' eye to find him wearing an expression that hovered somewhere between gleeful and impressed.

"And Mathew Onerson retaliated by throwing gravy at him – but Charlie was so cool – he just kind of brushed it away and told him he fought like a girl – "

"And Bill was trying to break it up – "

"But no one was listening – "

"And then one of the beaters set fire to the ends of his hair, and someone panicked and threw pumpkin juice at him to put it out – "

"And that's when the teachers intervened – "

"And nearly everyone got put in detention, where, of course, the fight just continued."

They both laughed, and Remus joined in, his approving chuckle making Tonks' insides dance. "Very impressive," he said, nodding, "but for full Marauding marks you should have slipped some to Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, and let them duel it out over the mashed potatoes."

Steph considered Remus for a moment with wide eyes and startled eyebrows. Obviously it was the last thing she'd expected him to say. Then she turned her eyes to Tonks. "Man," she said, "I wish we'd thought of that."

Tonks couldn't help but concur. "Hmm. My money would've been on McGonagall," she said. "You know how seriously she takes Quidditch."

Tonks met Remus' eye and saw that he was battling a snigger, and she wondered for a moment if that was something he and his friends had done. He hid his snigger behind another sip of his drink, and then coughed. "Steph?" someone called from the kitchen. "I think you'd better come and see this."

Steph rolled her eyes and downed her drink, barely pausing to wince at the taste. "Wish me luck," she said, and headed for where the voice had come from.

Remus met Tonks' eye with a flirtatious twinkle that collapsed her insides, and as much fun as she'd been having with Steph, she was glad they were alone again. "So, would you like to dance?" he said, gesturing in the vague direction of the lounge and the thumping bass line that still rattled the light shade above them.

"Dance?" she said.

"It's a party, isn't it?" he said. "There's music, and room – and if the alternative is standing here and drinking another sip of this concoction, then I think I'd rather have my shins kicked and my toes trampled."

She laughed but nodded anyway, and he took her glass and handed that and his to a passing girl with long orange hair and a dazed expression. He slid his fingers down Tonks' arm, intertwining them with hers, and she shivered, but didn't have the time she would have liked to savour the sensation as he lead her towards the lounge.

Inside, the music was uncomfortably loud – which probably explained why the room was much less rammed with people than anywhere else. Remus took out his wand and cast some kind of muffling spell around them, raising an eyebrow in question at her, seeing if she was going to be protest. She didn't – she hadn't been particularly enjoying the way her bones vibrated to the thump of the bass line anyway, and she could still hear the music as if it was being played on a wireless in the corner.

She cast her eyes around briefly, thinking that the room was nice – it had kind of the same feel that she'd been going for in her flat – light, but homely, with Steph's knickknacks arranged in artistic clumps, and pictures of her favourite bands – Muggle and magical – on the walls.

For a moment Tonks wondered if this was what her life, her surroundings, would have been like if she hadn't decided to be an Auror – if she'd taken her mother's advice and got a nice, sensible, safe, job – or if she hadn't accepted the invitation to become a member of The Order of The Phoenix, if she still lived in blissful oblivion like most of the wizarding world.

Fleetingly, she thought it might be nice not to know they were all living on borrowed time, to think that peanuts in the carpet was a crisis, but as she turned into Remus' arms she realised she wouldn't trade her life for anything, not even for the chance to have the kind of normality she occasionally craved.

Even though the music didn't really invite a slow dance, Remus coiled his arms around her shoulders and pulled her closer, resting his chin against her temple as they rocked from side to side, both keeping their feet firmly planted on the floor. Tonks sighed into his jumper, tightening her grip on his waist. For one thing, she thought, if she had have got herself some nice, safe, sensible job, would she ever have met a man like Remus?

"So how am I doing?" he said, murmuring his words right against her ear and making her whole body hum. "Does your friend approve?"

"She thinks you're foxy," Tonks replied, torn between the impulse to lean back and see his face, his reaction, and to stay exactly where she was, nestled against the soft, comforting warmth of his jumper, where she could imagine his heart beating out a steady rhythm underneath her cheek.

"Wolfy, maybe," he said, sniggering quietly into her hair.

He spread his fingers over the small of her back, fingertips just brushing against her exposed skin, and they swayed on the spot, having tacitly agreed that any more of an attempt at dancing would only lead to trouble. She savoured it, being this close to him; for once having nothing to worry about but enjoying the moment, the feel of his fingers on her skin, the thrill of having him pressed to her, the tingles created by his breath on her ear.

"She likes you," Tonks said, surprised how purring her voice was.

"Good," Remus murmured, although she was so distracted by the patterns he was tracing on her back she hardly recognised the sound he made as an actual word.

"What do you think of her?"

"I think she's mad for letting this lot loose in her house and she'll never get the peanuts out of the carpet, whether I show her that charm or not," he said, and Tonks sniggered against his chest.

A Hufflepuff Tonks vaguely recognised from school stumbled past them and retched into a plant pot – the plant – whatever it was – shaking its rubbery leaves in disgust. She pulled back a little, looking up at Remus, suddenly seeing all of this from his point of view, wondering how strange or immature he found all this. He must have done all these things – seen his friends buy their first house and settle down – years ago.

"You must be really hating this," she said, and offered him an apologetic smile from his shoulder, but Remus chuckled, and the vibration of his laughter passed from his chest to hers.

"I'll admit that the music fully warrants use of the word 'racket', and that the food and _some_ of the company leaves a lot to be desired," he said, his gaze lingering briefly on the girl throwing up in the plant pot, his eyes narrowing a little in what she thought was probably concern before he looked back. He lowered his chin just slightly, and peered up at her through his fringe, giving her a look that never failed to give the butterflies in her stomach something to flutter about. "But I don't want you not to do the things you want to do – the things people your age do – just because you're with me." The fingers of one hand lightly skirted her arm, and the butterflies beat their approval for his actions vociferously on her insides. "And, contrary to popular belief, I have been to parties like this before," he said. "Worse, in fact."

"I'll bet," she said, laughing and wondering if he felt the same wonderful tickle in his chest as she had in hers at the action. "One thing you can say about Sirius is that he knows how to throw a party."

"Indeed," he said, pulling her closer.

She nestled back on his chest, and stayed there for what seemed like ages. The only way to mark the passage of time was the changing records, and by the time she leant back, wondering if Remus was bored, she'd lost count of how many there had been. Remus raised an eyebrow at her, his expression a little glazed and far away. "You look deep in thought," she said.

"Do I?" he said, his eyebrows making for his fringe in surprise.

"You're not?"

"No," he said. He offered her the briefest flash of a cheeky smile, and then leant in close – so close that his breath tickled her skin. "Actually," he said, "I was just wondering what kind of knickers you might be wearing."

Tonks pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out a laugh that would surely be audible over the music, muffling charms or otherwise, but couldn't do anything to stop herself from looking desperately surprised at his words. As he registered her expression, Remus looked rather pleased with himself. "Really?" she said, and he laughed.

"No," he said. "What do you take me for?"

Remus managed to keep his face straight for a moment, but then it dissolved into a boyish grin that lit up his face and her insides. "Well actually I _wasn't_," he said, "but I am now." He glanced up at the ceiling in what she couldn't help thinking was mock-embarrassment. "Just a little bit." His eyes darted back to hers, and his grin widened. "In my defence, though, they were very nice knickers, the ones you were wearing this morning, and very much worth further thought."

"And those aren't even my pulling ones," she said, and Remus' eyebrows shot up in amused surprise.

"No?"

"No," she said. "I've got much nicer ones than that."

"Well," he said, and then looked away, doing a good impression of a bashful schoolboy, even though she knew he was nothing of the sort. "I look forward to seeing them."

Tonks bit her lip and was just plotting something desperately flirtatious to say about whether he wanted to go back to Grimmauld and peruse her underwear drawer now, when her eyes chanced upon the very last person – perhaps excepting a hoard of Death Eaters – that she wanted to see.

Johnny Parker.

She closed her eyes in a brief wince, hoping he wouldn't still be there when she opened them again, even though she knew that was hugely unlikely, and that silent prayers of the kind she was uttering normally went unanswered. "What?" Remus said, leaning back and peering at her with concern, his eyes roving her face, wondering, she presumed, if he'd over-stepped the mark.

"Nothing," she said, attempting a smile. It faltered, and Remus raised his eyebrows at her, nodding at her encouragingly to continue. "Well, not nothing, obviously," she added, rolling her eyes.

"If I – "

"No, it's not you," she said, smiling, genuinely this time, and Remus raised an eyebrow. "It's just – well, that bloke over there. He and I used to…."

"Ah," Remus said, glancing rather surreptitiously over his shoulder to the spot her eyes kept darting to. "Ex marks the spot."

Tonks attempted a snigger at his joke, although she didn't really feel like laughing. "I didn't know he was going to be here," she said. "But – well, he kind of knows Steph from work – that's how we met."

"What happened?" Remus said softly.

"It was when I was training," she said. "I was away a lot – completely wrapped up in what I was doing – "

She trailed off. It wasn't really a story she wanted to tell him, especially when they'd been having such a wonderful time, but Remus laid a hand reassuringly on her arm, and she marvelled at how quickly his touch made her relax, as if the warmth of his fingers had spread immediately to her tensed muscles. He gazed down at her with such compassion and kindness that she couldn't remember quite what she'd been scared of. "Is he the one you told me about?" Remus said, and she nodded, flattered that he'd remembered what she'd said when it hadn't been a particularly memorable or interesting story. "You said you drifted apart."

"We did," she said. "But he started seeing someone else when we were still together, and even though we _had_ drifted…. Well, it still hurt."

Remus wrapped his arms around her, easing her back against his body, and his hands rubbed reassuringly over her back. He held her for a moment, and then nodded over his shoulder in the general direction of her ex, and then moved so he could whisper in her ear. "Do I need to do something manly and territorial?" he said, voice lilting with amusement, and she laughed, wondering how he did it, how he always chose the perfect moment to lighten the mood.

"I don't think so," she said. "Besides, he's really crap at duelling. You'd eat him for breakfast."

"Oh well as long as I'm sure to win," he said, making to move away, "I shall go and challenge the fellow immediately."

Tonks laughed and reached for his hand, pulling him back to her, and they shared a chuckle. He squeezed her fingers, and she bit her lip, trying to decide whether to say any more on the subject, or not. But he'd always been honest with her, and so she thought she owed him nothing less, and since the subject had come up…. "When Steph found out he'd cheated on me, she went mental – I think she was more angry than I was," she said. "They managed to sort out the turnip nads I'd given him no problem, but she hexed him so badly it took the healers at St Mungo's a week to figure out what she'd done to him."

"I knew I liked her," Remus murmured, but before she had a chance to reply, the man in question appeared at her elbow.

Johnny Parker.

She took in his tatty dragon hide jacket and artily faded T shirt, thinking that, once upon a time, she'd thought he was everything she wanted in a man, and how wrong she'd been.

"Tonks?" he said, and Tonks met his eye, forcing a smile that at one point would have been as irresistible as the tide.

"Wotcher," she said, wondering too late if she should have used another greeting, one she didn't normally reserve for friends, people she hoped would be friends, and Remus.

"You cool?" he said, and she thought she saw nervousness in his brown eyes, although experience told her she was probably mistaken.

"I'm good," she said. "This is Remus."

All of a sudden she was very glad that she'd asked him to come along. It wasn't that she couldn't handle Johnny – she'd run into him a couple of times since they'd split up – in the Leaky Cauldron, and a Muggle bar she'd taken him to a couple of times, and things had been fine, if a little frosty – but having Remus there made the whole thing so much more bearable because she knew she wouldn't spend the rest of the night dwelling on everything she'd said – how she'd seemed, whether she'd been so cold he assumed she still bore a grudge, or not cold enough and he thought they might be friends. She squeezed Remus' fingers, and he offered Johnny his other hand.

"Remus, this is Johnny," she said, and Johnny jerked his head back in greeting, glanced perplexedly at Remus' outstretched hand, and then took it, shaking it as if the gesture was completely alien.

"Killer party," he said.

"Indeed," Remus returned, with rather curt politeness.

It didn't go unnoticed, and with the exception of the time her parents had caught them doing something she really wished they hadn't, Tonks didn't think she'd ever seen Johnny look more disconcerted. "How's work?" Johnny said, eyeing Remus rather warily, and then turning to Tonks.

"Busy," she said. "You know how it is."

"Hmm. Wouldn't have thought you'd have time for parties."

"Well," Tonks said, "all work and no play makes Tonks a dull girl."

"You never used to think – " Johnny started, but when she glared at him, he stopped. "You look nice," he said. "That hair suits you."

"Thanks," she said.

There was a moment of rather stilted silence, and Tonks let her eyes wander to the bloke in the yellow T shirt, who was pogoing wildly in the corner. She wondered if he was under some kind of hex….

"Didn't know you were seeing anyone," Johnny said, nodding vaguely in Remus' direction but avoiding his eyes. Tonks fixed her attention on him again, and raised an eyebrow.

"You must have missed the announcement on the front page of _The Daily Prophet_," she said. "As headline news goes, my love-life's up there with Harry Potter."

"I just meant – why do you always have to be so hostile?"

"Perk of the job."

"You and your bloody job," Johnny said, rolling his eyes. "Everything's always about your job."

"My job's important."

"Yeah, I know, life or death – only you never gave a toss about having your own life or the death of your relationsh – "

"Have you tried the punch?"

Tonks didn't know if she, or Johnny, was more surprised by Remus' interjection, but when she glanced at him and found his eyebrows raised in pleasant expectation, she had to stifle a snigger. "What?" Johnny said, face a little panicked and confused, which did nothing to make stifling a snigger any easier. Remus smiled cordially.

"The punch. I think there's some kind of white rum in it, although I can't be certain because apparently the recipe is a closely guarded secret. I wondered if you had any thoughts."

"Er, no," Johnny said. "I'll erm – try some later – let you know."

"Good," Remus said. "I'd appreciate it."

They looked at each other for a moment, and Remus smiled again, giving off the air of a man who was trying to befuddle his opponent with kindness, and, if the bemused expression on Johnny's face was anything to go by, doing a very good job. Tonks wanted to hug Remus. "Well I'd better – " Johnny jerked his head towards the door and then shrugged. "Mingle. Try the punch, or something."

"Ok," she said.

"Nice to meet you," Remus said.

Johnny offered him a rather forced smile, and then backed away towards the hall, and Tonks let out a long amused sigh, and then slumped against the wall. She pushed her fringe back and looked up at Remus gratefully. "Thanks," she said.

"For what?" he said, even though he was smiling in acceptance of her gratitude anyway.

"For that – for making him go away without causing a scene or punching his lights out."

Remus glanced up at the ceiling, pressing his lips together in what she supposed was an attempt to banish a laugh. "Well it was a struggle not to do something manly and territorial," he said, stepping towards her, meeting her eye and grinning widely and wickedly. "You know, werewolves are very jealous creatures," he said, and his voice was so low and teasing it made her skin prickle. He leant on the wall next to her, supporting his weight on one shoulder and dropping his hands into his pockets, and then shifted and leant in closer, his eyes twinkling a little with amusement, his face relaxed, boyish, and eminently kissable, she thought.

"Are they?" she said, offering him her best flirtatious smile, and looking up at him coyly through her eyelashes.

"Oh yes. They say that, if a werewolf comes across a rival for the attention of the object of his affections, and _doesn't _rip his arms off and beat him to death with them, he should be rewarded because it takes a huge amount of self-control. "

"I don't remember reading about that in any textbooks."

"No?" he said, raising an eyebrow in playful consideration. She shook her head, and he moved in closer, tilting his head to one side and lowering it to hers. "Maybe you were too busy impersonating Professor Sprout and missed that bit."

"You think?" she said, toying with the hem of his jumper and easing him a bit closer.

"Oh yes," he said. "Definitely."

She grinned up at him in obvious invitation, and he slowly leant in, his eyes smiling, and kissed her.

At first he just brushed his lips over hers, which was enough to make her heart race and Tonks thank her lucky stars for imaginary werewolf lore, and then he touched his lips to hers altogether more insistently, one of his hands rising to cup her neck, his thumb tantalisingly stroking her skin, and her body really didn't know what to do with itself. The kiss seared right through her, and she supposed him too, because after a moment he shifted, pressing her back against the wall. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders and she kissed him hungrily in return, forgetting that they were in a public place, and then forgetting everything but the heat racing through her body as his lips left hers and his teeth grazed her neck.

"You worthless, two-timing, piece of hippogriff dung!"

The music stopped abruptly, and Remus broke away, his breath hot on her face – as hot, she thought as hers probably was on his. Tonks peered over Remus' shoulder for the source of the disturbance, and, dazed as she felt, it didn't take long for her eyes to focus on Steph, striding through the lounge with her wand thrust out in front of her, and Johnny, backing away with his hands raised, his eyes desperately searching for an exit. "How dare you show up here, uninvited!" she shouted.

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing – dancing, talking, laughing, and eyes swivelled in their direction, necks craned through the doorway to see into the room.

"Steph, it's fine – " Tonks said, extracting herself from Remus' body and stepping forward.

"It's not fine!" Steph shouted, firing a hex in Johnny's direction and earning herself a gasp from the crowd.

"What have you – " Johnny started, fingering his hair and grimacing. It was Steph's patented fringe-slimer spell – scourge of nearly all her fifth year crushes who didn't return her affection. The bloke in the yellow T shirt laughed uproariously, falling to the floor dramatically and beating the carpet with his fists, and a couple of other people laughed, while Johnny looked caught between offended and stunned. "You crazy – "

"I mean who does he think he is?" Steph said, eyes flashing angrily as they fell on Tonks. "This is my house, and my party, and you're my _best friend_, and he thinks he can waltz in here with his big brown eyes and – "

"Now hold on," Johnny said, his hands raised in surrender. "I didn't know this was your house. Big Jim said he was going to a party and did I want to tag along. I didn't even know you were here until you threw that tube of Pringles at me."

He rubbed at his forehead, covering his fingers in the yellowish slime and grimacing, while Tonks battled a laugh and was immensely glad – and not for the first time – that Steph was on her side. "That's not the point," Steph said, and with a flick of her wand, Johnny's jacket disappeared – he span around, desperately looking for it.

"That was a present!"

"From your trollop girlfriend?" Steph said.

"Steph," Tonks started.

"She's not a – "

Another flick saw to Johnny's T shirt, and he clutched pathetically at his exposed skin, trying to cover himself with his hands, even though he must have known it was futile. "Right, I've had enough," he said, grabbing his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans – presumably trying to make the most of them while he still had them left – and pointing it at Steph.

Tonks winced expectantly. Johnny had some good qualities, but being a decent shot wasn't one of them. He fired a curse, but whatever it was, it missed its target with spectacular predictability, instead ricocheting out into the hallway, hitting someone in the crowd who had gathered to watch.

In the blink of an eye wands were drawn all around them, and the air was thick with spells – yellow, green, red flashes sailed past them. Tonks cast a shield charm and she and Remus both ducked behind it, watching the scene in front of them unfold with their mouths slightly agape.

A shirtless Johnny tried to make a run for it, but Steph caught him in a _Full Body-Bind_ and he stopped in his tracks and head-butted the rug as he toppled to the ground – someone, presumably Big Jim, from the size of his forearms, caught Steph unawares with an _Oppugno,_ a swarm of gnats making for her hair – and someone Tonks vaguely recognised from the kitchen earlier weighed in to help her with a misplaced counter-curse. The arm of Steph's sofa exploded, sending its stuffing into the air, but before Tonks could even take that in, a couple of books flew from the cases in the corner, one of them catching the bloke in the yellow T shirt on the side of the head and sending him sprawling.

"Are you going to intervene?" Remus said casually, raising an eyebrow at her. Tonks shrugged.

"Not really my department, is it?" she said.

"No?"

"Do they look like Dark Wizards to you?" she said, and Remus shook his head, chuckling quietly to himself and then ducking as a red flash of light hurtled into the wall behind his head and put a small crater in the plaster. "This is more a Magical Law Enforcement thing," she said, gesturing to the scene in front of them.

"So you're not going to do anything, then?"

"Nah," she said. After all, nearly all Steph's parties had ended like this, and she wasn't sure, now she came to think about it, why she hadn't seen it coming. "Steph can look after herself, and, well, I wouldn't want a demarcation dispute on my hands, would I?"

A vase exploded against the wall behind their heads, and they both ducked. Remus' eyes widened as the two blokes who had previously been throwing peanuts at each other in the kitchen threw down their wands and started wrestling against the wall, and then narrowed in sympathy as one of them caught the other with a blow that was distinctly below the belt and he crumpled to the floor. "Would you mind terribly if I did something?" he said.

"No," she said, endlessly amused by the casualness of their conversation as the lounge was slowly destroyed around them. She supposed that being an Auror and a member of the Order had at least taught her to stay calm unless there was a real crisis, and a couple of dozen sloshed twenty-somethings firing mischief hexes at each other barely qualified. "Be my guest."

Remus nodded once, and then raised his wand to his throat and stood up. "Quiet!" he said. His voice boomed through the room, as loud as the music had been, and everybody stopped.

The bloke in the yellow T shirt froze, his teeth around the arm of the man who had caught him with a flying book, the girls in the corner who had been randomly firing hexes at anyone who came near them let their wands drop to their sides, and Steph stopped swatting at the gnats circling her head. Remus tapped his wand on his throat again, and when he spoke his voice was back to its normal volume. "I have never seen _such_ a display of wanton immaturity," he said. "You're _supposed_ to be adults."

Steph and a few others bowed their heads in shame. The bloke in the yellow T shirt smiled at the man whose arm he'd had in his mouth, and patted the skin affectionately. "Now, if I may?" Remus said, raising his wand.

He cast a handful of spells, calling off the gnats first, and then turned his attention to Johnny, still frozen on the floor. He ended the spell, and Johnny struggled to his feet, muttering curses and words like 'insanity', 'disproportionate', 'only slept with her twice' and 'not like I was getting any at home'. Remus sighed dramatically, and then met Tonks' eye.

She'd have thought from his expression that he found the whole thing deeply tiresome, but the twinkle of mischief in his eyes well and truly gave him away. Her heartbeat quickened a little as she wondered what he was going to do, and she pressed her lips together in anticipation.

Remus made the slightest of twitches with his wand, and, quick as a flash, two Twiglets darted from a bowl on the coffee table and lodged themselves in Johnny's nostrils. Johnny shrieked and clutched at his face, his eyes streaming. "As you were," Remus said, gesturing to Steph to continue, and she needed no encouragement, quickly turning her wand on Big Jim and heating his shoes, making him dance on the spot.

The lounge erupted around them, the air heavy with misplaced spells and shouting, and some whimpering from Johnny, who was on the floor again, desperately and fruitlessly trying to extract the Twiglets.

But Tonks couldn't think about anything apart from the surge of something fiery and insistent in her stomach. Remus had just fired Twiglets up her ex-boyfriend's nose – and she didn't know whether he'd done it because he didn't like him, or he was jealous, or whether he'd done it for her, because Johnny had hurt her – but it didn't really matter. Her brain was a jumble of emotion and thought – she'd found it amusing, certainly, and inventive and impressive, definitely, but more than that, she'd found it, why ever he'd done it, sexy.

"Shall we call it a night?" Remus said, and the cheeky suggestiveness of his eyes did nothing to mask the intensity of his gaze. As if that weren't enough to put a match to her insides, his fingers found the underside of her wrist and traced faint circles there that made her feel like her knees had been _Vanished_, not just jinxed, and she bit her lip, her breath catching in her chest and making her lips fumble for words that would normally have come easily. He smiled, and she didn't know if he sensed her reaction or not, and so she nodded, feeling her breathing quicken a little as his fingers slid from her wrist to between hers and squeezed tightly.

He lead her towards the door, and she waved at Steph as they passed. "We're going to make a move," she said, and Steph raised an eyebrow in question, which Tonks could only answer with a vague smirk.

"Thank you for having us," Remus said cordially as Steph fired a hex at the girl in the 'Make cows not war' T shirt that inflated her bottom to about five times its previous size. "I've had a lovely time," Remus added, raising his voice a little to make himself heard over the girl's shriek.

Tonks laughed and pulled him towards the hallway, stepping over a couple of girls who appeared to have knocked themselves out simultaneously. She glanced up at Remus, barely trying to conceal the delight in her eyes at the thought of those Twiglets lodged in Johnny's nostrils and how long it might take him to get them out. "Cool spell," she said. "Probably smarts a bit."

"Indeed," he said. "They were the hot chilli ones, too."

She laughed, and stopped a little way away from the front door, leaning against the wall and pulling Remus closer, fiddling with the hem of his jumper. "What would you say," she said, biting her lip against a grin as she peered up at him, "if I told you that I found that really sexy?"

Remus grinned back and leant in closer, gently pressing her into the wall and making her bite her lip harder against a gasp, rather than a grin. He met her eye, his somewhere between delicious, flirty, invitation, and delightful, schoolboy, amusement. "I'd say you were my kind of girl," he said, taking her face in his hands and tilting it up. His warm lips covered hers, and, in an instant, she was lost.

She wasn't entirely sure if the whooshing sensation in her stomach was from them Apparating or Remus' kiss, but before she'd had time to ascertain which and before they'd even really finished arriving, Remus was kissing her more fervently, and she couldn't think of anything except the feel of his lips on hers and his fingers on her jaw.

Suddenly, she wasn't on a cold doorstep at all, she was back against the wall at the party with Remus' teeth on her throat, or upstairs in her room, with his hips pressed against hers – she forgot about everything – her amusement at the thought she'd half been having about what Steph might be doing now disappeared instantly, and so did any residual cold from their journey – she felt as warm and tingly on the inside as she had that morning, and –

Remus' hands were in her hair, his lips teasing hers, and her body ached to have him touch her.

_Merlin_.

Tonks pulled him closer and stumbled backwards until her shoulders hit something solid and wooden.

_Front door_, she thought, and then coherent thought deserted her entirely.

His lips were eager and hungry on hers, and his hair was soft beneath her skin as she raked her fingers through it, pulling his mouth more firmly against hers. Their kiss increased in fervour with every minute, touches grew bolder by the second, and they stumbled through the front door, neither wanting to let their eager lips away from the other's for long enough to give the task the proper focus it deserved.

Tonks was vaguely aware of ascending the stairs, and vaguely aware of Remus' hands moving away to open a door, but his lips on hers, his body against hers, and the feel of his jumper beneath her fingertips was far too distracting for her to give either a lot of consideration until she caught her hip on something.

It was hard.

And pointed.

And desk-shaped.

She opened her eyes, taking in and trying to focus on her surroundings rather than just the whispered sensations Remus was causing by tracing the outline of her bottom lip with his thumb as he kissed her jaw. "We appear to be in your bedroom," she said to the corner of his mouth, her voice hushed, hurried and breathless.

"Hmm," he murmured, pulling her closer, his lips on her neck. "You're constantly vigilant after all."

His lips brushed hers again and she sighed against them, the noise catching in her throat as his fingers found the hem of her top and slid inside against her skin. His hands inched higher, his fingers splayed against her skin, barely tickling, exploring with the same eager, intoxicating pace as his tongue in her mouth, and before she really knew what was happening her top was on the floor, his jumper had joined it and she was scrabbling to get the buttons of his shirt undone.

Soon enough the only thing against her stomach was his, and as he slipped one bra strap down her shoulder she thought it was probably only a matter of time before there was nothing between them at all.

He kissed her neck, moving up to nibble her earlobe, and she took the opportunity to let her eyes wander over him, her breathing quicken in response to what she saw. She'd thought that, maybe, underneath it all he'd be all angles – and he was thin, there was no getting away from it, but there was something pleasingly curvy about him, the way his shoulders flowed down to his chest, the unexpected dip of his waist above slender hips.

He hooked his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his, covering her lips with an urgent kiss, and after that there seemed to be only racing heat. It spread from his fingers into her skin, but from hers too as she explored, tracing the contours of his shoulders and then letting her hands dally on his chest, move down over his stomach, finding an intriguing trail of hair below his bellybutton that disappeared underneath his belt. She felt dizzy at the thought and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, grateful for how close he was holding her, how strong his arms felt.

His touch made her delirious, his kiss as he returned his lips to hers made her head spin and her knees weak, and the feel of his skin against hers as he eased her ever closer was amazing – it made her feel light-headed with desire and tingle all over with expectation – but somewhere in the back of her mind was a voice telling her that she shouldn't commit herself properly to this because any second he'd pull away.

She didn't want that, and she didn't want to be constantly thinking about if, or when, he'd stop – if she should…. She wanted to be free to lose herself in what was happening, and so before she could talk herself out of it, she dragged her lips across his cheek and pulled away a little, albeit with reluctance of monumental proportions. "I thought you wanted to – you know – wait," she said, and his lips, his fingers stilled on her skin. She hoped she hadn't misjudged where this was leading, and glanced up, biting her lip as she met his eye, wondering what she'd find there.

But he didn't look annoyed, or irritated, or shocked at the suggestion, or any of the things she'd feared he might – his eyes held hers, and they twinkled with something warm, and inviting, but there was trepidation there too, and her heart constricted at the thought. "I did," he said, and his fingers drifted up her arm, and he gently scuffed her cheekbone with his thumb.

_Did_.

She repeated the word over and over in her mind until she was sure that he had said what she thought he had, and that it meant what she thought it meant.

Tonks' brain reeled first, quickly followed by her body.

She suddenly had a new and acute love for the past tense.

"Did?" she said, her voice hushed and breathy, her heart pounding louder than the music at the party ever had, and making every inch of her reverberate to its rhythm.

"Hmm," he murmured, his chest rising and falling quicker than usual against hers.

And yet, in spite of everything, she felt utterly calm. It seemed impossible that a moment ago everything had seemed so frantic, and now everything was quiet, and still, but it was, and she held her breath, not wanting to make any movement, however small, to spoil the moment. She met his eye, suddenly aware of how very close they were standing, of every inch of his body that was pressed against hers – her jeans, his trousers, his naked stomach against hers, and above that, black lace, his pale chest, and arms, twined around each other so that she couldn't quite tell whose was whose.

"I trust you," he said quietly, and the corner of his mouth hitched, just slightly, into the beginnings of a smile. She swallowed, and then raised an eyebrow in question, because his words had done funny things to the bit of her brain that was normally in charge of forming sentences. "If you say you've thought about it, then I trust you. I just – I needed a while to get used to the idea," he said, but she barely heard him because she was still replaying him saying that he trusted her.

She _loved_ that.

She bit her lip a little harder, aware that she was grinning at him like an idiot, but she couldn't think of anything to say, so she just let his words dwell in the air between them for a moment, and then raised herself up on her toes and covered his lips with hers.

He drew a breath in sharply against her mouth, his fingers tightening on the small of her back in the tantalising promise of something still to come, and then kissed her in a way that made her insides quake and her heart beat faster, because for the first time there was something gloriously unrestrained about it.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and then threaded her fingers into his hair, desperate for something to hold onto as his kisses drove her crazy. She couldn't take any more without showing him exactly how she felt and she broke away, covering his jaw with a multitude of fleeting kisses, and in response he dropped his forehead onto her shoulder and sighed delightedly, holding her tightly against him as she moved down his neck. "I suppose this has got nothing to do with you being really horny after this morning, has it?" she said, breathing her words against his delicious skin, and he laughed, his breath tickling her shoulder and then her neck as he turned his face.

"Absolutely not," he said, straightening up, taking her face in his hand. He scuffed her cheek with his thumb and looked down at her, and through the darkness she could only just make out the slightest tinge of concern in eyes that were otherwise alive and sparkling. "I mean – we don't have to, if you don't want to – "

"Are you joking?" she said. "Have you any idea how difficult it was to concentrate at work after this morning?"

Remus let out a soft breath of laughter, and it gently drifted over her face, but once it had settled, everything changed again, and before she had chance to register who had moved first, their mouths were pressed tightly together, tongues exploring frantically as if they'd never done it before, and they were both snatching breaths where they could, when the other moved away to bestow kisses on chests, or necks, or nibble ears, or when heads lolled back because of something the other was doing.

She barely noticed him undoing her belt, fumbling with the buttons on her jeans, because she was past caring about individual actions, and way past caring what he thought of her body, if he liked what he saw. The only thing she could think was how much she wanted him – all of him – and how pleased she was that he seemed to feel exactly the same.

It wasn't until she was slipping his trousers past his hips and hearing them slide to the floor with a sigh, and he was steering her back towards the bed and carefully lowering her onto it with the air of a man who'd had a lot of practice at this sort of thing, that it occurred to her how very much more practice he'd had at this sort of thing.

His lips were on her neck, his leg resuming its position from earlier with largely similar results, but –

At the party she'd thought that she didn't care about the age thing, and she didn't, but he'd been doing this since he was seventeen, and a quick bit of mental arithmetic that she was surprised to be able to pull off at such a moment told her that that was nearly twenty years to her five, and at the thought – and before she could stop herself – she laughed against his shoulder. His lips slowed their pace on her neck. "What?" he murmured softly against her skin, nearly making her forget what she'd been laughing at, but not quite.

"Nothing," she said, but her snigger gave her away. She rolled her eyes at herself and then met his eye, knowing that she should confess and wincing a little at the thought. "I was just thinking about how old you are."

Remus' shoulders drooped in quite impressive mock-disappointment, which would have worried her, had his eyes not still had their trademark sparkle. "Thank you, Tonks," he said huffily, although the way he returned to kissing her neck, gently pulling her flesh into his mouth indicated that he wasn't really in the mood to hold a grudge. "That's exactly what a man wants to hear the first time he takes his clothes off in front of a woman."

She covered her mouth with her hand and laughed into her fingers. "I'm sorry – I didn't mean – "

"Well I should hope not," he said tersely, but there was laughter in his voice he couldn't quite disguise, and when he glanced at her, his cheek twitching as he clearly battled a grin, she bit her lip and then rolled him, settling on top of him, and then sliding her legs up his, straddling his hips and sitting up a bit.

She settled for taking a quick, but rather strangled, breath to steady herself before she leant in and kissed him – she tried to make it an apologetic one, but as their mouths met, they were in no mood for anything other than insistence and teasing. As his body moved under hers it felt amazing – far too good if she was going to get a word out, and she pulled away a little, and decided to say something before they both forgot what she was doing there. "I just – " His neck looked far too inviting, and she couldn't resist kissing it, tasting his skin just a little – and his collarbone, which had occupied a quite large proportion of her thoughts all day was just sitting there, begging to have her run her tongue over it….

Words, she thought, there were supposed to be words. "I was just thinking that you've been doing this for – I don't know – four times longer than I have, and – "

His mouth was on hers again briefly, but then his lips trailed away, favouring her neck, and then repeating her gesture on her collarbone. She swallowed – hard. Doing it to him had been nice; having him do it to her was…nicer, and made her insides shudder. "Well," he said, and his tone lilted, drawing her attention when little else would have, "that's true enough, but if you're expecting me to be four times as good at it, you're probably about to be sorely disappointed."

He moved away and met her gaze, smiled at her for a moment, and then touched his lips to hers, kissing her slowly and softly until she was on the point of melting. He threaded his fingers back into her hair and, as he drew her body closer, raising his knees a little to tilt her against him, she murmured her approval against his lips.

She was a little surprised when he swallowed heavily and pulled away, and met his gaze with an enquiring raise of her eyebrows. "I meant it," he murmured, softly. "We don't have to – I mean _I'd_ like to – " He glanced down briefly and then met her eye, his dancing impishly. " – which I daresay you can no doubt tell, given your position – but if you don't want to – "

She cut him off by pressing her lips to his, which proved to be a rather effective way of silencing him, shifted closer, and then took his face in her hands, kissing him a little bit harder, weaving her fingers into his hair to make sure that he really got the message.

As his fingers closed on her hips and then drifted up over her back, pulling her more firmly against him, she wondered what it was that she'd been worried about.

This felt right. It had always felt right.

She moved to press kisses to his neck, moving slowly up to the spot just under his ear that she knew was particularly sensitive, eliciting a low rumble of approval from him that reverberated right through her. "I do," she murmured, rather unnecessarily, she thought, given her actions. "I want to find out if you're four times better at it."

She grinned against his skin as he half-laughed, half-sighed, moving down to take another pass over his delectable collarbone and then out towards his shoulder, allowing herself to taste his skin just a little bit. "I'll save you the bother," he said, his fingers dancing over her hips. "I'm not."

"I'll settle for twice as good."

As he shifted underneath her to kiss the crook of her neck, she felt, rather than saw, his smirk. "Twice as good might be doable," he said.

"Really?"

"Well after all those handy hints I got from Molly this morning…."

He trailed off as she moved lower, dragging her lips over his chest and producing another one of those low rumbles of approval that she liked so much, and by the time she returned to his neck, he seemed rather incapable of speech. His lips moved to her jaw and his hands trailed down her body, igniting it and making her feel exactly as she had that morning – a mass of excitement, and nerves, and tingling anticipation. His lips were hot and teasing on her skin, his tongue dancing, alternating light, fluttering kisses across her shoulder with something more insistent.

His hands slipped around her back, releasing the catch of her bra and he slipped it from her shoulders, barely waiting until it had hit the floor before his mouth started exploring. She tried to form a word of encouragement or approval, but the only thing that escaped her lips was a gasp. She pressed her fingers into his neck, holding him exactly where he was, hoping that spoke the volumes she couldn't, and when she really didn't think she could take any more she dragged his lips back to hers, and his fingers ghosted over her thighs, up to her hips, shifting her against him.

It was all tantalisingly close to being too much, and she bit her lip as she moved, catching his face in her hands and kissing him, hard, and then sliding her legs down his. He seemed to take the hint, rolling her onto her back and settling against her with a low moan that rumbled right through her, returning her kiss very much in the spirit that she'd meant it. She felt on the very edge of dissolving, but then his lips moved away, blazing a trail down her neck, across her breasts, where they paused, momentarily, for him to do extremely wicked things to her nipples with his tongue. As they settled on her stomach she instantly forgot her disappointment that they weren't paying attention to her breasts any more, and her fingers tightened in his hair. "Very nice," he muttered, and she swallowed.

"What?"

"Knickers," he said. "They're very nice. Are these the pulling kind, or..?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she said, and he sniggered.

"Almost a shame to take them off," he mused, toying with the lace around the top as he placed hot kisses along her hip bone.

"But you're going to anyway?" she asked, peering down at him when she felt him look up. He raised an eyebrow at her but tugged them down anyway when she grinned, and then slid back up her body, helping her to divest him of the last vestiges of his clothing too.

He settled against her, so solid and warm beneath her fingers – and demonstrably, palpably, _naked_.

Naked.

She was naked with Remus J Lupin. She wanted to laugh at the thought, even though she'd never been more serious about any concept ever in her life, but when he stretched over her and kissed her, taking his time, moving slowly over every millimetre of her mouth, any thought of ushering anything but a low, appreciative moan darted from her mind.

He eased away slowly, met her eye. "Do I need my wand?" he said, and she nodded. He leant over the edge of the bed and scrabbled on the floor in his abandoned trousers, muttering the charm out loud, though she'd have trusted him to do it wordlessly, and then settled back against her.

And now there was nothing to stop them.

And the thought that they wouldn't stop – and hopefully wouldn't be interrupted – sent a thrill of pure excitement through her. She couldn't resist wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss, and his lips on hers made her ache in the very best possible way. Of all the kisses they'd ever shared, she thought that this one was by far the best, because there was a raw honesty about it. He didn't trouble to try and hide how much he wanted her, and she didn't either – and somehow knowing how much they wanted each other fuelled them both with a new desire that was a little keener than it had been, a little more demanding, and entirely inescapable, and so when he moved away a little and looked at her, his breath hot and ragged on her face, she just nodded, ever so slightly, but it was enough for both of them.

He shifted his weight a little, lowering himself carefully, and pressed his body into hers –

She gasped and took a shuddering breath at the contact, and for a moment they just looked at each other, and the whole world felt still, as if it was holding its breath along with them.

And then he kissed her slowly, and moved, just a little, and everything went hazy around them, and they were nothing but skin on skin, lips on lips, as they clung to each other.

He took things slowly, at first, and was a little tentative – more tentative than perhaps she'd expected that he would be given the urgency of his earlier actions, but when she responded eagerly, wrapping her legs around his and rising up to meet him, he sighed in what sounded a little like relief against her throat, and rocked his hips more certainly, purposefully, against hers.

And it felt –

She wasn't sure she had the words.

She took a shaky breath against his lips, thinking that at once everything felt completely unreal and wonderfully, wonderfully real, that her thoughts and the sensations he was producing seemed to be in vivid colour when before they'd been muted, only she hadn't known it. She slid her hands down his body, clutching at his hips and pulling him closer, deeper, almost as thrilled by the groan she elicited from him as the shudders coursing through her body.

His breath was ragged, and hers heavy, and as the tension mounted and they continued to move, she slid her hands up over his back, holding him closer, tightening her legs around his, wondering if she'd ever be able to get enough.

She whispered to him, telling him – begging him – not to stop, even though she didn't think he was about to, and she could feel him smiling, albeit in a rather strained fashion, as he shifted a little to press frantic kisses to her skin.

When his teeth grazed her neck it was all too much in the best way possible, and she let go, letting him feel in every arch of her body and hear in every ragged breath she snatched against his face how much she liked what he was doing, and he held her tightly to him, kissing the side of her face, her hair, anywhere he could reach, letting her ride the sensation out until she relaxed in his arms, feeling light-headed and breathless. She covered his face in appreciative kisses and he picked up the pace a little, then, and so did she, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, wanting him to feel what she'd felt. She wasn't sure he needed the extra encouragement, but just in case, she kissed him, fiercely, delighting in the way that, after a moment, he couldn't kiss her back at all, reduced to nothing but heavy, laboured breaths against her mouth.

And after another moment he couldn't even manage that, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck and let out a groan that reverberated right through her, making her insides shudder and her heart soar, before letting his body collapse onto hers.

They were still for a moment, revelling in their shared heat, their frantic breathing as it slowed. And when they'd both returned to something approaching normal, she slid her hands into his hair and he raised his head and kissed her, his lips taking a languid pass over hers, making her insides shiver in delight.

Time seemed to lose all meaning in the wake of a kiss like that, and at once she felt like it lasted for days and was over far too soon. He buried his face in her neck again, and laughed, and she couldn't help laughing too, letting out a breathy snigger against his hair. He moved away a little, propping himself up on one elbow, using the other hand to push her hair out of her eyes, while his gaze roved her face, searching for something she couldn't quite fathom. "So we finally did that, then," he said quietly, his fingers lingering on her cheek.

"Seems like," she said, a little surprised that her voice was working, but not at all surprised how pleased she sounded. He grinned, and then laughed, and kissed her again, softly, and she wasn't sure why but the butterflies were back, and when she took a breath to try and still them, it caught in her chest.

He moved away, flopping back on the bed with a sigh she found rather gratifying, and then met her eye before glancing down at his chest in obvious invitation. She inched towards him and he sat up a little and drew the sheets towards them, pulling them over her shoulder as she settled on his.

She chanced a glance up at him, and met his eye. He sniggered slightly and looked away, biting his lip against a grin – and with his hair all rumpled and his cheeks slightly flushed and his eyes sparkling, she thought he'd never looked more appealing or handsome.

His fingers trailed over her shoulder and down onto her arm, tickling her skin and he pulled her closer, pressing a warm kiss to her forehead, and letting his lips linger there for so long that she almost forget they weren't always there.

She was never entirely sure what she was supposed to say in situations like this – but she always felt she should say something, because it seemed silly not to, and so when she was sure she'd be able to manage a whole, real word and not just a string of garbled morphemes that echoed what she was feeling, she said the first thing that came into her head. "I suppose we should have the post-sex talk," she murmured.

"The what?" Remus said, raising his head and looking a little alarmed at the suggestion.

"You know, where you talk about something other than what you just did that isn't really significant but seems so at the time – like I might tell you that I always wanted a set of Muggle crayons when I was little and my mother wouldn't let me have them, or something."

"Oh," he said, his tone dropping in relief. "For a moment, there, I thought you were talking about something much more frightening."

"What?" she said, smiling up at him, intrigued.

He looked away and sniggered again, and then his gaze swung back to hers, a glimmer of desperate amusement written across his features. "Something involving scorecards and marks out of ten for what we just did," he said.

"Oh," she said, laughing at the thought. "No." She bit her lip, pressing her cheek into his chest, unable to resist a cheeky grin. "But that might be fun."

He pressed his head back into the pillow and considered her for a moment, the same twinkle of amusement still in his eyes. "I'll confess to a modicum of curiosity, numbers-wise," he said, tilting his chin into his chest and peering down at her, and his expression was so amused and yet hopeful that she couldn't resist the impulse to tease him just a little bit.

"Seven," she said, hiding her face in his chest and biting her lip to keep from laughing as she imagined the horrified look on his face.

"Seven?" Remus said, appalled. She chanced a glance up, finding his eyebrows as amusingly high on his forehead as she'd hoped they would be.

"And a quarter, maybe," she said.

"Seven and a – " Remus dissolved into a breathy protest that didn't involve any actual words. "Now admittedly it's been a while since I had anything to compare it to," he said indignantly, "but for my money that was _at least_ seven and a half sex, if not seven and three quarters."

She pressed her lips even more firmly together, and successfully bit back her laughter. "Well Snape's always saying you're too generous with your marking," she said, and looked up. Remus' mouth was gaping, and he was aghast.

"Generous with my – " He dissolved into another string of blustered protests, but his eyes were dancing. "I'll give you generous with my marking."

Before she could do anything to stop him, he made good on his threatening tone, rolling her onto her back and pinning her to the bed, his fingers finding a particularly sensitive spot on her ribs and digging in in a merciless tickle. She writhed against him, laughing and feebly trying to work her way free, even though she quite liked the comforting weight of his body on hers, if not his tickling fingers.

Soon enough, though, tickling gave way to caresses and laughter to kisses, and then everything became entwined in the most delightful way until she found herself nestled back on his shoulder with his arms around her, having given in and confessed that actually, she'd probably put it somewhere around the eight mark, and agreed that Snape was in no way right about his grading scale and that they should never mention him in the bedroom ever again.

As she felt her breathing settle into a contented rhythm that matched his, and her eyelids start to droop, she thought that the first time with other blokes she'd always felt edgy, somehow – concerned with what they thought of how she looked, wondering if they liked what they saw or if they wanted her to change, if they liked what she was doing – but that she hadn't felt anything like that with Remus.

Sirius' words about it being obvious how Remus felt drifted through her mind, and as Remus pressed his lips to her temple and kissed her goodnight, she couldn't help but wonder if that was why…. And she knew she shouldn't attach too much meaning to eight out of ten sex and him shooting Twiglets up someone's nose, but as she drifted off to sleep, listening to the thump of his heart, she couldn't help wondering if every thump was for her, and grinning at the thought.

* * *

**A/N: Ok, then…. Many, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Anyone reviewing this one gets a fanfic Remus of their choice to deal with a ex of their choice in an appropriately seasonal way: Romantic Remus just shows them how it's done, showering you with homemade, thoughtful gifts that make them seethe with jealousy; Mischievous Remus turns their underwear to holly and then offers them a seat while you both snigger; Flirty Remus grabs you for a long kiss under some Conjured mistletoe right in front of them, and Sexy Remus hexes them to hell and back, and then apologises for being jealous, but saying that when it comes to you, he just can't help himself ;).   
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**And, since this is probably going to be the last Werewolf update before Christmas (although you might want to look out for a Werewolf-related seasonal treat at some point), I'd just like to say that I've been writing this for nearly a year now, and your support and enthusiasm for this story just blows me away. Merry Christmas, everybody. **


	17. Chelsea Morning

Tonks' first impulse when she drifted awake and realised where she was and why was to snigger.

She'd woken up with Remus before, of course, but never like this, under these circumstances, with her head on his warm, naked shoulder and his arm around her.

As she opened her eyes, the light through the curtains was hazy, and she wondered why she'd never appreciated the soft, butterscotch glow it cast on skin before – and then she wanted to laugh at herself for being drunkenly poetic this early in the morning, just because of some 8 out of 10 sex and waking up on his shoulder.

But it was nice, waking up like this, with his arm around her and hers across his stomach, his breath tickling her hair.

He made her feel – always had, she thought – protected, somehow, as if she was precious to him. It wasn't something she'd been looking for from him – or any man, if it came to it, and she certainly didn't need protecting, but it was nice that it was there being offered, and she was surprised how much she liked it.

She smiled at the thought of the previous night – she'd thought about what it'd be like to sleep with him a hundred times, if not more, and though it had been nothing like she'd expected, it had been everything she could have wanted. The thought caused a surge of fresh excitement and nervous energy in her chest, and she had to stifle the burgeoning urge to get to her feet and leap up and down on the bed like a child on her birthday.

She shifted a little to glance at the clock, smiling at the thought that it was Saturday and for once she had the day off – she thought he did, too….

For a moment, she let herself drift off into a delicious daydream concerning what they might get up to, which was every inch worthy of drunken poeticism, regardless of how early it was.

His fingers curled against her arm, brushing her skin lightly, and she started a little – she'd assumed he was still asleep – but his breathing had changed, was now a bit too irregular and shallow for that to be the case. She couldn't resist waking him up fully.

"Morning," she said sleepily, glancing up, and Remus opened one eye lazily and looked at her.

"Morning," he said, and then closed it again, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement.

She bit her lip, trying not to laugh although not really knowing why she wanted to. She let her eyes wander down over him, taking in his chest, that nibbleable stomach, the sheets caught around his waist, and then lower. "Good to know you're pleased to see me," she said, smirking.

"It's an early morning thing," he said, opening his eyes a little and raising an eyebrow at her playfully. "I thought we covered that?"

"Really?" she said, pressing a bit closer, letting her fingers dally on his chest, drawing lazy circles on his skin.

"Hmm," he murmured. "So that smirk's a little out of place."

She suppressed a smile, marvelling at the way her heart pounded at the thought that she was allowed to touch him like this. "You're completely indifferent to my presence, then?"

"Absolutely."

He closed his eyes and feigned disinterest, only the twitch at the corners of his mouth giving him away.

She allowed her fingers to abandon their place on his chest, trailing them slowly down his side, across his stomach, and beneath the sheets. They skirted his hip, and finally her fingers settled on his thigh and started stroking gentle circles there instead. "Even if I did this?" she said softly.

Remus opened one eye just far enough for her to see the smile in it, and she bit her lip and raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes," he said, snapping his eye shut again.

She wasn't prepared to be defeated. "How about this?" she said, slipping her hand to his inner thigh and running her middle finger up and down, slowly letting the others join in with her almost-tickle.

"Completely oblivious to your presence."

She bit her lip again, aware that he was watching her from underneath half-closed eyes. "Even if I did this?" she said, raking her fingernails across his skin just hard enough to make him take a sharp inward breath.

"Uh huh," he said, although his voice was a little huskier than it had been.

"Really?"

She flattened her hand out and drew it up his thigh and onto his stomach, tracing circles around his bellybutton and then following the coarse hair that fell in a languid path down his abdomen. "How about that?"

"No effect on me whatsoever," he said, rather breathily.

"Hmm," she murmured thoughtfully.

She was determined to get some reaction out of him, so she let her fingers wander lower, and lower, and lower until he closed his eyes and pressed his head back into the pillow, moaning as her fingertips danced over him in a feather light tease. "I might notice – if you did – that," he said, biting his lip.

She shifted against his chest and traced kisses slowly down his neck, and then back up again, pausing at his earlobe and letting her breath flutter against it for a moment before giving it a quick nibble. "And I believe you have my full attention," he said from somewhere in the back of his throat.

"Hm," she said, lifting away from him and peering down at him, attempting to pull off the kind of expression that she felt would be a good fit for her words. "Shame it's just an early morning thing, then," she said innocently as settled against his chest again. "Might have been fun."

Remus let out a huff of amused irritation, and her stomach lurched in a tiny tremor of a thrill. "Well that's just not fair," he said, his voice a grumble in his chest.

"You made your bed," she said, desperately trying not to give in to either the impulse to laugh or to pin him to the bed and have her way with him, which were equally strong, even though one was _slightly_ more appealing than the other.

He let out another quick sigh of amusement, and then met her gaze. "I'm not going to take this lying down," he said.

"And what, exactly, are you going to do about it?"

"This."

He moved suddenly, flipping her onto her back and capturing both her hands, pinning them above her head. She giggled, not even trying to wriggle out of his grasp, because really, why would she want to?

Merlin, with his hair ruffled into his eyes and that wickedly suggestive grin on his face, he looked sexy.

"There's nothing you can do," she said, thinking that the obvious effort she was making to battle _her_ grin was probably more than giving her away. "I'm completely disinterested in you _and_ your early morning thing."

"Really? Well, we'll see about that," he said.

He started on her throat, and his lips on her skin were intoxicating –

She swallowed purposefully. "You're going to have to do better than that," she said.

He raised an eyebrow at her in question, and she raised one back in a challenge she really hoped he'd rise to, even though he was doing a pretty good job so far. He shifted, transferring hold of her hands from both of his to one.

His fingers dallied on her throat and made her skin shiver, and then disappeared beneath the sheet in search of parts more suitable for teasing, while his lips returned to her neck and made her breath catch in her chest.

Unable to stop herself, she let out a low moan. "How'm I doing?" he whispered hoarsely in her ear. She let out another low moan in response, and he let her earlobe slide through his teeth, and then carried on down her neck, nibbling her skin….

One thing lead to another, just as it had the night before, but this time, they took their time a little more, exploring, finding out what the other liked. She found a couple of things he seemed to like a lot, and he managed to find some things she wasn't entirely indifferent to, either.

Later, when she was back in his arms and feeling coherent enough to form words, they agreed rather breathily that this time at some points they'd cleared eight and a half out of ten sex and were even veering into nine territory, which seemed like a decent amount of progress for one night.

They finally made it down to breakfast at lunchtime.

Remus pushed open the kitchen door, ushering her inside, and Sirius looked up from the sandwich he was making, opening his mouth to say something, but then stopping himself.

He looked from Remus to Tonks, and back to Remus again.

Then, slowly, he raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. "You two'll be wanting a hearty breakfast, then," he said.

At her side, Remus let out a quick, amused snort, and then pulled out a seat for Tonks at the table. "I haven't the faintest idea what you mean," he said, gesturing for her to sit and meeting her eye with an adorable cheeky expression.

He crossed the kitchen, bumping Sirius, who still looked rather stunned, out of the way with his hip, and stealing the sandwich he'd been making. He cut it in two, placed it on a plate and returned to the table, sliding into the seat next to her and offering her half.

Sirius harrumphed a protest, but went about making another sandwich anyway, and joined them at the table, Summoning some glasses and filling them with water. Tonks picked her half of the ham salad sandwich up, taking a bite, and Remus did the same, dropping his other hand under the table and tracing the seam on the knee of her jeans with his fingers.

It made concentrating on chewing and swallowing a little bit difficult, but she wasn't about to complain.

"So what do you two have planned for today?" Sirius said. "Are you just refuelling before you head back upstairs, or..?"

Remus glowered playfully at Sirius across the table, and Sirius sniggered. "I don't believe we've made any plans," he said, meeting her eye and smiling, slightly.

Tonks bit her lip, wondering why she was suddenly tingling. Hearing Remus say 'we' like that….

She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but she suddenly felt, even though they'd been together for months, as if they were more together, somehow – a couple – and they'd been that before too, but….

She didn't know what it was. But she liked hearing him say it – she liked hearing him say it like _that_.

"Bill dropped some stuff off last night," Sirius said. "Moody wanted you to cast an eye over it at some point – you know, if you've got time."

"I'm sure I'll fit it in."

"Well make sure you do," Sirius said, gesturing mock-sternly at Remus with half of his sandwich. "War doesn't stop just because you've got your end away."

He folded the sandwich into his mouth and chewed it with difficulty, while Remus frowned at him playfully, and then turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "What would you like to do today?" he said, and she shrugged.

Honestly, she thought that Sirius' plan of grabbing a bite to eat and then heading back upstairs had distinct merits, and the look in Remus' eyes suggested that he might be thinking exactly the same thing.

Her stomach fluttered.

"If you two can tear yourselves away from the bedroom, though," Sirius said, "we could do with some food."

"So the war doesn't stop because I've got my end away, but it stops because you're hungry?" Remus said, and Sirius chortled.

"Yes," he said. "Exactly."

Remus rubbed his hand over his chin and sighed amusedly. "All right," he said. "Make us a list and we'll nip to the shops."

Although being jostled by shoppers was far from Tonks' list of ideal ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, the way Remus twined his fingers with hers and kept squeezing them certainly took the edge off, and the way he kept shooting glances at her and then looking away when she met his eye more than made up for taking a swipe to the ankle with an over-stuffed carrier bag.

There wasn't a great deal on the list, really, just the things Sirius liked to drunkenly snack on, the supply of which had diminished at a rather more rapid rate than normal, and a couple of basic supplies – tea, coffee, milk, that got depleted at meetings or when people lingered afterwards.

Soon enough, they were back at Grimmauld. Molly popped round with a cottage pie large enough to feed a moderately-sized army, rendering their efforts largely unnecessary, and Tonks smirked as the thought occurred to her that she should corner Molly at some point and tell her that Remus really didn't need the handy hints she'd provided on making sure a girl had a nice time.

Dinner was accompanied by wine, and soon enough they were falling back into bed in a slightly tipsy haze, giggling at their ineptitude at undressing each other as she got his jumper caught round his head and trapped him, while he couldn't figure out how to undo her belt.

She marvelled a little at how easily they'd made the transition from one phase of their relationship to the next, although in the next instant with his lips on her stomach and her hands fisting in his hair she wondered why…. He'd always made her feel at ease around him, and she wasn't sure why she'd expected this to be any different.

She supposed it was because in the past when she'd slept with someone, it had changed things. There'd been awkwardness, and doubt, and she'd wondered if it had been the right decision – and then there'd been the creeping thoughts about whether, soon, they'd get bored and eventually ask her if she wouldn't mind tweaking her appearance for them.

But it hadn't even occurred to her to have those feelings about Remus, and it didn't feel like anything had really changed. They were closer, she thought, obviously, but…. It felt like this was just an extension of what they'd been feeling for a while.

As his fingers teased a sensitive spot he'd found that morning on her stomach, she was glad his misgivings appeared to have melted away. She wasn't sure what she'd done to cause it – or that she'd done anything at all – if it _was_ just simply a matter of him needing time to get used to the idea that she wanted to be with him.

At any rate and whatever the reason, he seemed perfectly contented with her in his arms – almost as contented, in fact, as she was to be there, and it seemed a good place to abandon the notion of cohesive thought as he kissed her and made her mind dissolve along with her insides.

* * *

Tonks curled her feet onto Remus' lap, scrunching her toes into his thighs in a way that she knew made him squirm, with predictable results. 

He chuckled and caught her feet, placing them more squarely in his lap while they chatted about her day, the two nights previously when they hadn't seen each other because of the full moon and her shift for the Order respectively, and some of the things that had been brought up in the meeting that had just finished.

They'd been sleeping together for just over two weeks – not that she was counting, but it was a marker in time she was unlikely to forget – and in that time she'd learned a lot of interesting things about him. He had an unbelievably ticklish patch behind his knee, for example, and every time she touched him there he made the most amusing noises – noises she never thought she'd hear emanate from the lips of a grown man.

He hadn't been idle, either, in the quest for knowledge, quickly figuring out that there was a spot on her neck that if he kissed _just so_ made her literally weak at the knees – knowledge he'd proved himself not beyond exploiting for his own purposes. Not that she minded, of course.

They'd also learned that her bed was impossibly squeaky, and that even though Grimmauld Place was rather less salubrious, it was often the better choice because the squeaking made them laugh at often quite inappropriate moments. They'd also learned that being the recipients of a Conjured Post-It note on the doorjamb that read '_Could you keep it down a bit, please, you two? You're putting me off my dinner_' from their best friend/cousin was completely mortifying, and was capable of reducing them both to the level of embarrassed giggling normally reserved for teenagers caught snogging by their parents.

But all in all, it'd been an interesting couple of weeks, she thought, smiling.

She wriggled her toes again, this time aiming for his stomach, and he caught her feet and held them back on his lap, grinning at her. "Your feet are pesky," he said.

"Actually, they're killing me," she said. "Remind me the next time I go running round Exmoor to wear more sensible shoes."

She rolled her eyes at herself, and he turned to face her a little more, lifting one of his knees onto the sofa under her legs. He repositioned her feet in his lap, and took one of them into his hands. "Here," he said.

He pressed his thumbs into her heel, moving slowly in tiny circular motions up the arch of her foot and onto the ball, and then moved back down again. Tonks let out a rather lengthy sigh, and let her head fall back against the sofa as he expertly removed the tension from her feet, seemingly having an innate ability to find the sore spots and make them feel better.

She closed her eyes, enjoying the press and remit of his fingers on the sides of her feet, the back of her heel, the way his fingers danced up over her ankle.

He settled that foot back in his lap and reached for the other, repeating his actions until she felt entirely dreamy and oddly floaty.

Remus' fingers slipped round her ankle and made their way just inside the hem of her jeans, stroking her skin in a way that was as exciting as it was relaxing, and idly she wondered if it was odd that she found him playing with her feet sexy.

Although these days she found nearly everything he did sexy, so it was no great surprise that this was no different. And he really did have very deft fingers….

She was just about to murmur a suggestion for an early night when the door opened and Sirius stomped in and threw himself down in the chair opposite. His eyes flickered to Remus hands.

"Oh will you give it up," he said tersely, and she looked up in time to see Remus smirk.

"Is a man not allowed to be demonstrative with his girlfriend any more?"

Sirius glowered. "I heard you being demonstrative all Saturday night, thank you very much. I mean really, would it kill you to cast a Silencing charm once in a while?"

"Ah, but Marauder rules still apply," Remus replied.

"Marauder rules?" Tonks said.

"Hmm," Remus murmured, turning towards her a little. "The person listening to the noises he doesn't want to be listening to is responsible for the casting of Silencing Charms, since the person making the noises is likely to have other things on his mind."

"Oh trust you to remember that word for bloody word," Sirius said, sinking further down into his chair and Summoning a bottle of Firewhiskey and a glass from the cabinet.

Tonks raised an eyebrow and sniggered. "Do I even want to know how and why you came up with that?" she said.

Remus cleared his throat. "Well, _somebody_," he said, his eyes darting pointedly towards the opposite side of the room, "was rather prone to returning early from Hogsmeade trips with a girl and making the most of the quiet – and he insisted that it was down to us to cast the charms, since he was otherwise occupied."

"Sounds fair enough to me, then," she said, "if you're just getting your own back."

Sirius poured himself a generous measure of Firewhiskey, and then offered them the bottle. Tonks shook her head, and Remus declined, too.

Sirius dropped the bottle at the side of the chair and sank a bit further down, slurping noisily at his drink and regarding them both rather sullenly. "Interesting meeting," he said, and Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Yes," he said, although his tone was rather non-committal and unenthusiastic.

"Snivellus is still a limp-wristed bastard, though. He couldn't resist a dig, could he 'I must get back. _Things_ to do'. Wanker."

"I don't think he meant – "

"Course he bloody did. You've seen the way he sneers at me."

"He sneers at everybody. Actually, I thought he was smiling – "

"Smiling? Snivellus? He doesn't even know the meaning of the word." Sirius picked angrily at some loose thread on his T shirt for a moment, and then drained his glass and reached for the bottle. "Are you sure you don't want a drink?"

Remus nodded, and a rather sullen silence descended, broken only by the popping of a log in the fire. Tonks exchanged a glance of concern with Remus, desperately racking her brain for something to say and then coming up with something far from perfect, but better than nothing. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she said, rather more enthusiastically than she felt. "I managed to get the weekend off."

"Oh," Remus said, eyes widening a little in surprise before his forehead furrowed a little. "Oh," he said again. "I thought you were working, so – " He studied her feet in his lap for a second, before meeting her eye with a rather embarrassed expression, and continuing rather reluctantly. "I – well, I said I'd go and see my mother," he said, smiling faintly. "She likes to see me every now and then to make sure I'm still alive – especially now."

"Oh."

She tried not to feel too disappointed – after all, they hadn't made plans specifically, and it had been a last minute switch – "It's all right," he said, rubbing the side of her foot with his thumb. "I'll tell her I can't make it. Go some other time."

"No," she said. "Not if you've made plans. I'll – I dunno, hang out here. Spend some quality time with Buckbeak or something."

Out of the corner of her eye, Tonks just made out Sirius rolling his eyes, and she turned to look at him. "Or…" he said, gesturing at Remus wildly in exasperation, as if to egg him on to something.

Remus at least seemed to know what he was getting at. "Well, I mean, if you wanted to," he said, raising his eyebrows at her, "you could come with me."

For a moment Tonks couldn't say anything, because too many thoughts collided in her head. They seemed to centre on the words 'Remus', 'mother', 'weekend' and 'yikes', in no particular order that made any more sense than any other way round.

She weighed the idea carefully – or as carefully as she could under the circumstances. On the one hand was the flutter in her stomach that Remus wanted her to meet his mum, and on the other, the crushing, paralysing knowledge that she didn't tend to do very well with parents. When she'd met Johnny's, she'd embarrassed herself completely by getting his mum's name wrong for most of the afternoon, and accidentally dropping a trifle on the floor and smashing the bowl into a million pieces.

"Would that – I mean, would that be all right?" she said.

"Of course," he said, smiling, squeezing her foot slightly. "Might be nice to get some sea air."

She considered it for a moment. She really did want to spend the weekend with him – and she'd grown up a lot since the last time she'd met someone's parents. Even Molly had almost let her serve her own tea at the meeting earlier. "Ok," she said, pressing her lips together against an excited grin.

He returned her smile, and then nodded towards the door. "I should probably go and let her know," he said.

"You can Floo her from here," Sirius said, gesturing at the fire with an irritated wave of his glass. He sloshed a little Firewhiskey on his hand, and then licked it off. Remus rolled his eyes.

"I am not going to hand you an opportunity to drunkenly flirt with my mother," he said, and Sirius laughed.

"Fair enough," he said. "Fire in the kitchen's still going. See if we've got anything snacky while you're there."

Tonks waited until Remus' footsteps had faded on the stairs and she heard the kitchen door creak open, and then turned her attention to Sirius, finding him grinning far more widely than she thought the situation demanded. "Go on, then," she said. "What's she like?"

"Other than flirtable?"

She raised an eyebrow by way of reply, and Sirius considered her for a moment, regarding her over the top of the glass he was bouncing on his lip. "Well," he said, "you know all the things you like about Remus?"

"Uh-huh?"

"How he's kind, and warm and witty?"

"Yeah?"

Sirius paused dramatically, smiling as she leant forward eagerly in her seat. "Well, he gets all of that from his dad, and everything else from his mother."

"So we're left with – "

Tonks trailed off as the full horror of what Sirius was suggesting settled in her stomach.

"Quiet, overly polite, bookish stiff shirt?" Sirius offered.

Tonks swallowed. "So you're saying she's a bit of a cold fish?"

"I'm saying you'd get a warmer reception from a herring under a freezing charm in the outer reaches of the Arctic Circle."

Sirius nodded emphatically, and Tonks closed her eyes in dismay. She should have known, because girls like her didn't get pleasant weekends away in Dorset with see air and the man they were in love with on top of a mother who'd be easy going even if she _did_ splatter a trifle all over the floor.

If Remus' mother was anything like Sirius said she was, there seemed to be only one conclusion to be drawn. "She'll hate me, won't she?"

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Sirius said with rather forced brightness. "Just don't swear. And don't break anything because she's very particular." He pursed his lips in thought and squinted at her, letting his expression turn into a rather worrying wince as he gestured to her head. "And you might want to reconsider the hair. And if you could act a bit older it probably wouldn't hurt. She's pretty easily shocked."

"Oh bloody hell."

Tonks sank back into the sofa, bouncing her head lightly off the upholstery, and Sirius sniggered. Just when things were going so well….

"So you and Moony," Sirius said, and Tonks sighed. She really had no desire to have any kind of big brother talk with Sirius that involved the words 'so you finally did the deed, then?' or anything even vaguely along those lines. "It's getting pretty serious."

"Hmm," she murmured.

"Meeting his family, and everything."

She didn't answer. She didn't know quite what he was getting at, and until she did, she thought it was best not to say anything potentially incriminating. "What's your mum think?"

"About what?" she said, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

"About you and Remus."

"Oh. I don't know. I haven't told her."

Sirius' eyes widened in gleeful question. "Have you not?" he said.

Tonks glanced nervously up at the ceiling. So much for not saying anything incriminating. "I haven't _not_ told her," she said, shrugging as nonchalantly as she could. "I just haven't told her."

Sirius' eyebrow inched up a little towards his hairline as he considered her with the faint trace of a smile playing on his lips. "You don't think she'll approve?"

"Like I give a rat's ass about that," Tonks said, and Sirius laughed. "She'll just be annoying about it. She'll want us to go over on a Sunday and for me and her to flower arrange or something while dad talks to Remus in the garden about bloke stuff. I mean you know what they're like – and we don't get a lot of time together as it is – I don't want to – you know, waste it having pointless conversations with my parents about their rockery or what colour they should paint charm the lounge."

It was more or less the truth. She had wanted to tell them, on occasion – most recently when her mother had Flooed and said she'd met a very nice young gentleman named Stan in Flourish and Blotts who she thought might make a suitable boyfriend – but she'd always held back, because she didn't want to risk doing anything that might rock the boat between her and Remus when their boat was in such a gloriously un-rocky place. And bringing her parents into the equation, with all their nosey questions, would certainly do that, whether they approved or not.

Sirius regarded her curiously, almost sympathetically, for a moment. "You know you got off lightly in the family stakes, don't you?" he said, topping up his glass almost to the brim and slurping the top half inch. "If my dear mother was alive and kicking and with us today and _I_ had a significant other, she'd be getting out her genealogy charts and working out if she was suitable stock."

Tonks cocked her head and frowned a little in thought. "I thought you – you know – weren't speaking, before – " She paused. She never knew quite how to refer to Sirius' time in Azkaban. 'You went away' seemed an awful euphemism, and anything jokey like 'got yourself banged up' just didn't seem to fit, do justice to, the horror of the place and what he'd been through.

Sirius shook his head. "We weren't," he said. "But it'd take more than that to stop her interfering. I mean did you hear her shouting at me the other morning to get my hair cut? Won't even leave me alone in death. That's what you call annoying parentage."

Tonks covered her mouth and spluttered into her fingers – and was still laughing when Remus came back.

He tossed a packet of pumpkin crisps at Sirius, who juggled them briefly and then dropped them into his lap, muttering something about Remus throwing like a girl. Remus muttered a reply about him catching like he had paws instead of hands, and then met her eye, grinning, and sat down next to her, draping his arm round her shoulders and pulling her closer. "You didn't want anything, did you?" he said, shooting a furtively disapproving glance at Sirius, who was shovelling crisps into his mouth at a quite impressive rate. "Since it doesn't seem you're going to be offered one of those?"

Sirius looked up, offering the bag to her. "D'you want one?" he said, but she shook her head, snuggling closer to Remus instead.

"Is it ok for me to tag along?" she said. "With your mum, I mean?"

"Yes," he said, looking a little puzzled by the question.

Tonks nestled on Remus' shoulder, thinking that there was very little that didn't seem better with his jumper under her cheek. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad. She could be charming, couldn't she?

"Does she know about me?" she said, and he shifted, resting his chin on her hair.

"What?"

"Your mum."

"Of course she does," he murmured. "She says hello, and she's looking forward to meeting you."

"As anybody would be," Sirius said, offering her a toast before knocking back his drink.

Remus scuffed her arm with his free hand, easing her a little closer. "You're not worried about this, are you?" he said quietly.

Tonks shook her head, even though she was, and nestled into the crook of his neck.

She couldn't help picturing herself dropping a trifle on Mrs Lupin, who wore a sour expression on her pinched face, and tutted, asking Remus what on earth he was doing with such a stupid, clumsy girl. Then, Mrs Lupin reached for her genealogy charts and screamed when she saw the kind of family Tonks came from, the kind of person Remus had got himself involved with.

Tonks squeezed her eyes closed to block out the image, wincing at the thought of how the boat she'd tried so hard to keep on an even keel was about to be rocked, whichever way she looked at it.

* * *

Tonks was fraught. Never had the transition from Tuesday to Saturday happened so quickly, and as she dashed round her bedroom looking for the one pair of sensible shoes she owned, she cursed all the seconds she'd wasted _not_ thinking about what to wear.

She needed, desperately, to make a good first impression since she was bound to do something stupid at some point, and trainers with some kind of sludge on them really weren't going to cut it.

She dropped to her knees and scrabbled underneath the bed, finding a suspiciously grey tissue, a pair of knickers she didn't even remember owning, and a board game some distant aunt on her father's side had bought her, but no shoes.

With a sigh, she got back up, rummaging on the top shelf of the wardrobe, even though no-one in their right mind – which included her, most of the time – would keep shoes there.

Remus came in from the bathroom, still drying his hair, and stopped in front of her, his mouth slightly open. "Oh," he said. "You look – " She raised an eyebrow at him in question, and he frowned a little in consideration and then smiled. " – different."

She'd found a shirt her mother had bought her years ago in the back of the cupboard. It was cream, with a pattern of tiny blue flowers and tendrils, and was about a million miles from the kind of thing she'd normally wear, but she wanted desperately to look approvable.

If that was even a word.

Merlin, why was she so nervous?

She faced Dark Wizards on a weekly basis. She was part of a secret organisation plotting against the most feared Dark Wizard of all time. Surely she could handle one middle-aged woman?

She swallowed, taking half of her nerves momentarily away.

She'd gone for a black V neck over the top of the shirt, her smartest jeans, and long, chocolate-y hair she'd copied from a shampoo advert she'd seen on the back of _Witch Weekly_, which to her eyes looked a lot more like the kind of thing a mother would approve of than the midnight blue she'd been sporting previously.

"Is it all right?" she said, smoothing down her jumper over her hip.

"You always look lovely," he said. "It's just – well, it's different."

"I wanted to make a good impression," she said, fingering the end of one of her loose curls and wondering if it was too shiny. "I wanted to look – I don't know, respectable, for once. Like the kind of girl a mother would want her son to go out with."

"Oh," he said, looking a little taken aback. "You know there's nothing wrong with – "

He stopped himself, stepped towards her and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her against his chest. She took a moment to pull him closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and drinking in the smell of him, all clean and fresh and Remus-y. "She'll adore you," he said into her hair. "You've got nothing to worry about."

"Ok," she said, not entirely convinced.

After all, it was easy for him to say. His mother had given birth to him – she was obliged to like _him_.

He gave her a reassuring squeeze, which she returned, and then rested his lips against her forehead for a minute, before placing a kiss in her hair. "How's the packing?" he said, gesturing to the bag on the bed, into which she'd tucked her second smartest jeans, a pink T shirt which only had a moderately offensive slogan on it she thought she could cover with the jumper, a pair of moderately respectable pyjamas and a handful of toiletries. "Have you got everything?"

"I think so," she said.

Remus pulled away a little, and ran hand through his hair. "How about me?" he said, glancing down at the jumper she and Sirius had bought him for his birthday and then fiddling with the collar of his shirt. "Now you've gone to so much effort, I feel a little underdressed."

She allowed herself a small chuckle, and he rubbed her arm in a gesture of reassurance, which she was surprised to find was quite effective in banishing a good deal of her nerves. "You look fine," she said, and he grinned thankfully, then jerked his head in the vague direction of outside.

"Shall we?"

Tonks grabbed her bag, pulled on her least unrespectable boots (since the sensible shoes seemed woefully elusive), and took Remus' proffered hand.

They went out into the hallway, and she sealed the door behind them, nodding to him and squeezing her eyes closed as he Apparated them.

Tonks blinked in the sunshine, taking a deep breath of delicious, crisp salty air, and looked around. The were on high ground, a cliff top, she thought. There was scrappy grass beneath their feet, and to one side of them was a small cluster of spiky bushes, newly decked with yellow flowers for spring. Beyond that, the cliff fell away, revealing a cove below with a golden sandy beach, slate rocks and fiercely lapping water at the shore.

Even if Remus' mother was a cold fish, or a monster, she thought, at least she'd have a nice view to go with it.

She glanced up at Remus, and he nodded off to their left. Following his gaze, her eyes fell upon a squat, but quite large, grey stone house with a red door and slate roof, fronted by a ramshackle garden with a gate that looked like one good gust of wind could have it off its hinges.

The whole place looked rather ramshackle, in fact, but she liked it. It reminded her a bit of the Burrow – that look of being held together by magic, almost ready to break apart at the seams but not quite ready to give in yet, and above them, a seagull cawed its greeting.

There were curtains in the window, and one of them twitched. "Come on," Remus said. "We've been spotted."

He squeezed her fingers, smiled reassuringly, and they headed off across the grass, through the squeaky gate, and far too soon, Remus was wrapping his knuckles on the door.

Tonks almost hoped it wouldn't open, that the curtain twitching was some kind of security charm, and she held his fingers tightly to reassure herself, telling herself to calm down, that everything would be fine.

The doorknob squealed and twisted, and the door opened, revealing a woman with greying brown hair snatched back in a bun, and long, flowing tapestry-coloured robes.

Tonks swallowed. No going back now.

* * *

**A/N: Cheers to everyone who reviewed the last chapter oh-so-very long ago ;). Anyone reviewing this one gets seaside-y werewolf treats: Romantic Remus is master of the keeping-sand-out-of-your-ice-cream charm, Flirty Remus is all about the cliff top picnic, Sexy Remus has a cottage get-away and a roaring fire, and Mischievous Remus is off getting chips with the intention of trying to trick you into eating a pickled egg.**

** Oh, and if anyone's interested, the bit of the Dorset coast I was picturing for where Remus' mum lives is around Lyme Regis/Charmouth way. Apologies for the slight – er – cliff top cliffy. I promise not to leave you hanging for long****…. ;)**


	18. La La, Means I

Tonks sat bolt upright on the stiff sofa, eying the tiny, delicate tea cup on the table in front of her cautiously, as if her very gaze could break it.

She swallowed, shooting Remus a nervous glance – but he was sipping his tea as if he didn't have a care in the world, and was consequently no help at all.

Was it more impolite, she wondered, not to drink the tea she'd been given for fear of dropping the china and smashing it into a million tiny pieces, or to attempt to drink it, drop the cup and smash it into a million tiny pieces?

She swallowed again, weighing each option carefully.

The first made her look rude, she thought, especially when Mrs Lupin had gone to so much effort to ask her how she took her tea and to offer her an assortment of biscuits Molly Weasley would have been proud of; the other just made her look clumsy, and so she reached for the cup with a trembling hand and slowly raised it to her lips, having decided smashed china was the lesser of two evils.

She took a sip, then slowly lowered the cup – it really was annoyingly delicate – back onto its saucer, her body racked with tension until it was safely ensconced. She let out a sigh of relief, and Remus met her eye with a vaguely confused furrow on his brow and offered her a reassuring smile.

Tonks knew she was being ridiculous.

It was true enough that she had, on occasion, done things to china her mother found borderline horrifying, but on many more occasions she'd managed to drink things without causing a calamity. And even if this cup in particular _was,_ knowing her luck, some treasured possession, a family heirloom, the only surviving memento from a deceased and fondly-remembered relative, she was blowing things out of all proportion. She just needed to be careful.

The key was not to panic.

She took another tentative sip of her tea, gaze locked on the cup and her treacherous fingers until she went cross-eyed, and then forced a smile as she set the cup back on its tiny crested saucer.

See? she thought. Nothing to it.

Her pounding heart and sweating palms seemed to disagree, however, and she frowned at the thought that neither of those were a good thing to have around fancy china, particularly that which was a family heirloom of no doubt immense fiscal and sentimental value.

She surreptitiously wiped her hands on her jeans. Merlin, she hadn't been this nervous since her final stage of Auror training, where she'd had to walk into a dark, abandoned cottage, alone, not knowing what would meet her inside.

And granted, Mrs Lupin hadn't been quite as frightening as the trials and tribulations Mad-Eye had put her through, but it was early days, and Tonks still had ground to make up from a less than promising start.

Less than promising start, she thought. That's an understatement.

The introduction had gone OK, she thought. Mrs Lupin's eyes were a very icy blue that seemed to stare right through her and had caused Tonks several minutes of intense jumper-tugging, but she _had _called Remus darling, and he'd hugged her and given her a peck on the cheek, which she thought was a promising indication.

Remus had introduced Tonks as his girlfriend, meeting her eye as he said the word and making her stomach flip right over, and then had placed a hand on the small of her back and given her the slightest of nudges forward up into the hall, introducing his mother as Eleanor.

She hadn't tripped up the step and head butted Mrs Lupin in the chest as she had done a certain ex-boyfriend's father, and she'd managed the 'nice to meet you, Mrs Lupin' she'd been practising in her head all morning with all the right words in the right places. She'd even managed to hold out her hand and given the best impression of a genuine smile she was able to pull off under the circumstances as Mrs Lupin shook it, and it was only when they'd stepped up into the corridor, in which the sage green walls were barely visible between expansive pictures, that things had started to go awry.

Some of the pictures had been wizarding – boats bobbed on a painted ocean and children laughed on a windswept moor – but others weren't. All were vividly colourful, painted with long, slow strokes, and she'd felt rather captivated by them, although now she wished she'd steered well clear, since the only thing she knew about art was that you spelled it a-r-t.

"Did you – I mean Remus said you painted?" she'd said, feeling rather chuffed with herself for being able to meet Mrs Lupin's eye and pull off a coherent – well, near enough – sentence at the same time.

"Not all of them," Mrs Lupin had replied, "but some."

"Oh, they're –"

And that's when Tonks had stalled.

She'd needed a word. Just the one. Just a single, solitary collection of sounds formed into a tiny little speech-nugget.

She hadn't been able to think of one.

Mrs Lupin had raised her eyebrows slightly in encouragement – or irritation, Tonks wasn't entirely sure which… and, now she came to think about it, she suspected the latter.

"Er – "

Her brain had failed her entirely. She wasn't normally a walking word-a-day calendar or anything, but, usually, she was able to string at least half a sentence together at a time.

But nothing had come to her, and the more she'd thought about it, the more problematic her potential choice of word had seemed.

Nice hadn't seemed to fit – it was too… nice, but she hadn't been able to come up with anything vastly better. She'd debated whether she should say 'good', but discounted that in case it came across as patronising, and then had toyed with 'lovely'….

She'd abandoned _that_ after a couple of seconds' thought, too, since she couldn't help but feel it implied that she thought the paintings were twee – which she didn't – but she couldn't think of a way of stating that she thought they were lovely but not twee, other than _saying_ that she thought they were lovely but not twee, which she knew would have made it sound like she _did_ think they were twee and was just trying not to say so.

It was at about that point that the hallway had started to seem unbearably hot, and she'd wished she hadn't said anything at all, and had even debated taking a vow of silence to get through the rest of the weekend.

She'd met Remus' eye, trying to throw him a glance that suggested if he leapt in with one of his impeccably-timed rescues she'd more than thank him later, but all he did was smirk a bit and raise an eyebrow at her, apparently amused by her dilemma.

"They really brighten up the place, don't they?" Tonks had said, on impulse.

She winced at the thought. Those words were going to torment her forever.

In one foul swoop, she'd managed to not only imply that Mrs Lupin's paintings were gaudy, but that her home was dark and in need of brightening up.

Vow of silence, she'd thought, starting now, which is how they'd ended up in the lounge with her and Remus on the sofa and Mrs Lupin perched across from them, sharing an uncomfortable silence.

Tonks squared her shoulders, and forced a smile, because she couldn't help thinking the nervous frown she was currently adopting didn't really go with her outfit and say 'appropriate girlfriend material'.

She told herself not to panic. So she'd accidentally called Mrs Lupin's artwork gaudy and her home dank – it was nothing she couldn't recover from.

Even the would-be chipper voice in her head didn't sound convinced.

Mrs Lupin smiled, her eyes switching between her and Remus beside her, which did nothing to quash the feeling in Tonks' stomach that a dozen nifflers were rooting around inside it. She sent a desperate prayer to the seagull cawing outside the window – please let her like me. Or at the very least, not completely loathe me, even though I called her paintings gaudy. That wasn't too much to ask, was it?

"I've heard so much about you," Mrs Lupin said.

"Really?" Tonks said, shooting a questioning – and possibly a little alarmed – glance in Remus' direction.

"Well it's not as if I have a job to talk about," he said, shrugging mock-defensively and then grinning.

"I assure you, it's all been most complimentary," Mrs Lupin said.

"Oh."

Tonks blushed and studied her tea cup, wondering what on earth Remus might have said. "Biscuit?" Mrs Lupin said, offering her a plate on which Ginger Newts, custard creams and chocolate digestive jostled for position.

"Thanks," Tonks said, taking one of the Ginger Newts. "And thanks for, you know, having me. I know it was a bit short notice."

Mrs Lupin smiled. "It's a pleasure," she said. "We're so out of the way here – it's nice to have company occasionally."

Tonks returned her smile, relaxing back in her seat a little, reaching for her tea and nestling the cup in her lap. See? she thought. Really not that hard. You can be polite when you need to be.

They descended into silence once more, and Tonks' eyes roved the room, desperately looking for something to talk about, some way to make up for the gaudy painting comment.

It was a big room, with a huge bay window overlooking the cliffs, and through the nets she could just make out where they fell away to the beach. In truth, it _was_ a little dark, she thought, or maybe all the slightly shabby oak furniture just gave that impression. There were knickknacks everywhere, which didn't help, and on the walls instead of the paintings she'd really liked very much were traditional portraits where a variety of witches and wizards who looked haughty and a bit aristocratic snoozed in gilt-edged oval frames.

But it sat well, she thought, with the house, with Mrs Lupin and her upright gait and tapestry robes, and if they'd just get rid of the nets and maybe try a different colour on the walls, it could be completely lovely. In the strictest non-twee sense of the word.

"It's a great house," Tonks said. "I'd love to live by the sea one day."

"Really?" Remus said, turning towards her a little and raising one eyebrow. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah," Tonks said. "My gran – the Muggle one – she lives by the sea and it's – I don't know – calming, I think."

"Unless there's a storm brewing," Mrs Lupin said. "Thank goodness for charms to keep the tiles on the roof."

Tonks laughed, seeing a glimmer of hope on the conversational horizon. Maybe, just maybe, if she stopped obsessively over-thinking every single thing she said, she _might_ be able to get through this. Distracted by that hope, however, she momentarily forgot where she was and dunked her Ginger Newt in her tea, which quickly brought her back to the stiff sofa, and Mrs Lupin's ice-blue gaze.

She'd dunked.

Mrs Lupin stared at her unblinkingly, and Tonks could almost hear her thoughts. The word 'uncouth' seemed to echo off the walls and bounce back towards her, and she clenched her teeth to keep from wailing.

Things had just started to go well, and she'd _dunked_.

Her heart pounded. Merlin, what now? Should she eat the biscuit quickly and hope no one had noticed her social faux pas, or –

Her indecision proved fatal, and with a quite audible slop, half of her biscuit parted company with the rest and deposited itself on the sofa cushion.

"Oh, bollocks – " she said, and then winced. Sirius had said not to swear. _Bugger. _"I mean – "

"It's – "

Tonks gestured vaguely at the puddle of former ginger biscuit, scrabbling for a word, unable to meet either Remus or Mrs Lupin's eye or really listen to whatever polite platitudes they were making about how it didn't matter. "Balls," she muttered, shoving the rest into her mouth and swiftly swallowing it, shifting to get out her wand and clean up the mess as quickly as magically possible, because that was the only thing she could do to make it right. She went to set her cup on the table –

The cup teetered on the edge of the wood, and she watched, in slow-motion, as it toppled onto the carpet. It didn't smash, luckily, just landed on its side, emptying its contents onto the pale green carpet, and then rolled, its handle pointing up at her jovially in a silent jibe about her social ineptitude. "Oh, Merlin, I'm – "

She didn't quite know what to do. Should she dab at the tea with her sleeve, just to do something? Would that make things worse? Should she try a spell? She was hardly in the right frame of mind and her hands were shaking –

"Not to worry," Mrs Lupin said politely, getting to her feet. "I've got a bottle of _Mrs Scower's_ in the kitchen. I'll be back in a sec."

Tonks' heart sank. Of course she'd be polite about it, she thought. Why did that always seem to make things worse?

She clenched her fists. Why was she such an idiot when it came to things like this?

In the back of her mind was the nagging and desperately unhelpful thought that if she hadn't been so concerned about smashing the china earlier and had just drunk her tea like a normal human being, she wouldn't have had any tea left to spill _or_ dunk in.

_Idiot._

As soon as Mrs Lupin had left the room, Tonks turned to Remus, her face crumpling in what she thought felt a lot like anguish. "Do you reckon I can _Evanesco_ it before she comes back? Or you could – I'm all jittery – I might Vanish the carpet, or something."

In what Tonks couldn't help feeling was a rather insensitive reaction to her panic, Remus laughed. "And then what, _Obliviate_ mum so she forgets it ever happened?"

Tonks' eyes widened. She hadn't thought of that. "I _could_ – I'm not really allowed, but – "

"I was joking," Remus said, barely containing a snigger. Tonks' mouth formed into a silent 'oh', and she sighed, glancing down at her lap. Couldn't the biscuit just have fallen on her jeans?

Remus shifted on the sofa, drawing her gaze back to him, even though she wasn't sure she wanted to meet his eye. What must he think of her, unable, even, to handle simply meeting his mum?

She raised her eyes slowly to his, wincing in expectation, but he was smiling gently. "It's just a biscuit, Tonks," he said. "It'll come out."

"I know but – "

Tonks sank back against the sofa, not even wanting to look at the mess she'd caused, and sighed. Why did she have to be so inept at stuff like this?

It was like the first time she'd met Molly; she'd wanted to make a good impression because she seemed so very nice, but instead she'd tried to show such eager appreciation for one of her rock cakes she'd nearly choked on the thing. Or the first time she'd met the Minister. She'd practised a speech all morning, about how pleased she was to be part of such a prestigious squad – but all of that had flown out of the window the second she'd been faced with him, and she'd rambled like a school girl asking her favourite pop star for an autograph, even though she thought he was a twerp.

And _then_ there was the Johnny's mother trifle incident, which was just too horrible to think about. She supposed at least tea was easier to get out of the carpet than custard was to get off the ceiling, although that seemed rather too small a mercy to be overly grateful for….

Tonks picked at the cuff of her jumper, taking out her irritation with herself on a loose thread. "Your mum must think I'm such a moron," she mumbled, imagining all the things Mrs Lupin would say as soon as she and Remus were alone: 'Where on earth did you find her?'; 'Can't even handle drinking a cup of tea, Remus, really….'

Remus edged closer, knocking his knee against hers, and when she looked up tentatively, he smiled in a way that radiated understanding and not a little sympathy. "She thinks no such thing," he said. "Why are you so nervous?"

"I just – I just want her to like me."

Tonks sighed. It sounded even more pathetic out loud than it had in her head, but Remus' smile widened a little and he inched closer still, scuffing the back of her hand with the pads of his fingers. "And she will," he said. His other hand settled at the base of her spine, and he leant in, dropping a kiss onto her shoulder. "She'll adore you," he murmured, "just like I do."

Tonks' heart guttered a little at his words, and she let out a quick sigh and rested her cheek against his hair for a second. Remus slipped his fingers into hers and gave her hand a squeeze. "Just relax," he whispered. "I know she can seem a bit – proper, but she's really not that bad."

Tonks chuckled a little, and Mrs Lupin appeared in the doorway, a bottle of _Mrs Scower's Magical Mess Remover_ clutched in her hand. Remus drew back a little, but the hand at the base of her spine remained, and Tonks smiled at him gratefully.

"Sorry," Tonks said, turning back to Mrs Lupin, who was squirting _Mrs Scower's_ at both the tea and the biscuit. Tonks met her gaze and then rolled her eyes. "I'm such a liability when it comes to crockery. Remus should have warned you."

"No harm done," Mrs Lupin said, straightening up and gesturing to her cup. "I'll get you a refill."

As Mrs Lupin _Summoned_ another cup and filled it with tea, _Banishing_ the other to the kitchen along with the _Mrs Scower's_ – which really had done a marvellous job – Remus turned to Tonks and raised an eyebrow, mouthing the word 'See?' at her. She shifted back in her seat a little, thinking that maybe he was right. Mrs Lupin didn't seem particularly bothered by her lack of tea drinking grace – or if she was, she was a master at hiding it.

Mrs Lupin settled down in her wing-backed armchair, smoothing her robes across her knees and smiling pleasantly as she leant forward, meeting Tonks' eye. "Remus tells me you're an Auror," she said, raising her eyebrows in inquiry. She offered Tonks another biscuit, which, this time, she politely declined, earning herself a muffled snigger from Remus.

Tonks nodded in answer to the question, trying to resist the urge to fidget, because Merlin, she should just be grateful Mrs Lupin still wanted to try and have a conversation with her and wasn't trying to forcibly remove her from the premises. "That must be keeping you busy at the moment?"

"Yes," Tonks said. "Always does, though. However many Dark wizards you catch, there's always more lurking out there somewhere."

"I hear it's very tricky to get into."

Tonks opened her mouth to say something about not really, they're just looking for specific things, but Remus beat her to it. "Yes," he said, "very, actually. They haven't accepted anyone for training since Tonks."

His eyes flickered to hers, and his lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile, and for a second she felt a warm glow smoulder in her stomach at the thought that he was proud of her. "Probably decided not to risk it," Tonks said, "I think Kingsley – that's my boss –" she added, for Mrs Lupin's benefit, " – is still in shock about me accidentally kicking him in the shin on my first raid. He swears he's still got a dent. They probably just need a bit to recover."

Remus smiled, his eyes dancing with something that looked like approval, or relief, she thought, that she was acting a little more like herself, and Mrs Lupin was smiling, too, only hers was more tinged with polite inquiry. "What made you want to do that, for a living, I mean?" she said.

Tonks swallowed, meeting Mrs Lupin's gaze steadily. "My parents," she said, and Mrs Lupin's eyes widened a little in interest.

"They were Aurors too?"

Tonks let out a huff of amusement at the thought of her mum chasing Dark wizards. Not that she wouldn't have had the ability; she'd have just been a little bit too worried about getting her boots dirty or breaking a nail. "No," she said. "Almost the opposite. They – well, it was a bit of a scandal when they got married, because my mum's family are, well, nutters, and they didn't want her marrying a Muggle-born. And, well, they were always a bit of a target for the Death Eaters."

She took a quick breath to steady herself, wondering how to phrase it, how to put into words her reasons for choosing a career even her closest friends hadn't really wanted her to.

It sounded like a simple question, she thought, but the answer was endlessly complicated. There'd been a bit of her that wanted to do it just because other people said she couldn't, but if she was honest, doing something like being an Auror was always what she'd wanted, even before she'd really known what Aurors were.

"They tried to hide it," she said, "but I always knew they were scared. And I always thought that when I grew up, I didn't want to be. And I didn't want other people to have to be either, so…."

She didn't think she'd really explained it, but Mrs Lupin smiled. "It's a commendable profession," she said, and Tonks bit her lip against a grin, not wanting to feel too cocky, but feeling she'd made up a little ground all the same.

She was about to ask Mrs Lupin one of the stock questions she'd prepared when she was on patrol the night before – have you lived here long? – or something of that ilk, when her eye was caught by a Patronus slowly forming in the hallway. It was a parrot, and she recognised it immediately – but its beady eyes were fixed on Remus, not her.

"Oh," Remus said, his gaze flickering to hers for a second. "That's for me, I think. I'd better – "

He nodded towards the door and got to his feet, and Tonks shifted in her seat, watching as the parrot settled on his shoulder and he took the message. A frown formed on his features, and then he looked up and met her eye. "It's going to take a moment, I'm afraid. Could I use the fireplace in the kitchen?" he said, switching his gaze to Mrs Lupin's.

"Of course," Mrs Lupin said, "or the one in the guest room, if you'd rather."

Remus smiled. 'You'll be all right?' he mouthed, and Tonks nodded, even though she really wasn't sure she would be at all. Making pleasant conversation with Remus' reassuring hand on the small of her back and him beside her to rescue her if things went wrong was about a hundred miles from doing it without.

Remus disappeared down the corridor, and Tonks forced a smile in Mrs Lupin's vague direction. She could do this, she thought, it was just making conversation – which she did all the time.

"How – "

"It's – "

They both spoke at once, and exchanged a smile. "You first," Tonks said.

"I was just going to say that it's been a while since he came to visit and wasn't called away at some point."

"Hmm," Tonks murmured.

She wasn't entirely sure how much Mrs Lupin knew about the Order, what they did and why, or that she was involved, and so she didn't feel she could commit to more than a nondescript hum on the matter. Mrs Lupin didn't seem to really mind her lack of response, though. "I remember when he first told me about you, I wondered how he'd found the time to meet anyone at all," she said, and Tonks laughed, because it had seemed like that, sometimes, and still did, that fitting in time for a relationship was a very tall order with everything else they both had going on.

A joke Sirius had made about boys never being too busy to be interested in girls flitted through her mind, and she smiled at the thought. "I've still got the postcard," Mrs Lupin said, and Tonks' eyes widened in surprise.

"The one he sent from Hogsmeade?"

Mrs Lupin nodded, her eyes twinkling with amusement and crinkling at the corners, and Tonks marvelled at how, while they were doing that, they didn't look icy at all. "Would you like to see it?" she said.

If Tonks was honest, her curiosity about what Remus had written had driven her near crazy for weeks, and so she said that she'd love to, and Mrs Lupin _Summoned_ the postcard immediately, smiling briefly at the snow scene on the front. Tonks shifted forward on the sofa, suppressing a grin at the thought that Remus had probably anticipated this very situation and written something really boring just to spite her.

Mrs Lupin held the card out across the table, and Tonks took it and turned it over. And it wasn't exactly what she'd expected, but not far off, either. She laughed, looking up and meeting Mrs Lupin's inquisitive gaze.

"He's charmed it – it says 'don't be nosey, Nymphadora'," she said, and Mrs Lupin chuckled.

"Of course he has," she said, her eyes flickering to the ceiling and back again with what looked like exasperation. "He used to do that with his homework, too, when he brought it home. I'd try to read it, but all there'd be was a note saying, 'It's all right, mum, I got an O on this one.' His friends did it, too, on the letters they exchanged – although some of those were a little more robust in their language."

"I'll bet," Tonks muttered, placing the postcard neatly on the table top.

She looked at it, remembering the day they'd had in Hogsmeade, and wondered what on earth he might have written. She supposed now, she'd never know. "Oh, it's all right," Mrs Lupin said, catching her disappointed glance. "I memorised every word."

"Really?"

"Oh yes," she said, eyes twinkling in a way that was rather redolent of Remus, "it rather brought a tear to my eye."

Tonks swallowed. "Why?" she said. "What does it say?"

"Oh it wasn't the words," Mrs Lupin replied, "his penmanship was _awful_."

Tonks laughed. "In his defence," she said, "I did keep trying to steal it from him so I could read it."

Mrs Lupin sat back a little in her chair, clasping her hands loosely in her lap. "Well," she said, "it just says that he's in Hogsmeade with a girl, and that he's sending this because she wants to watch the owls take off, and he thought a postcard – even one to his mother – was rather more romantic than waving his arms and frightening them."

"Oh," Tonks murmured, through a titter, imagining what would have happened if there hadn't been any postcards at the Post Office and what he would have looked like frightening owls into flight.

"Tell me," Mrs Lupin said, her smile broadening knowingly and her eyebrows arching gently, "did you like the flowers?"

_Tonks'_ eyebrows leapt up entirely of their own accord and in a rather less studied fashion, she fancied. "Flowers?"

"On Valentine's Day," Mrs Lupin said. "He came for tea the week before in something of a flap about it since he couldn't afford to send you something expensive from _Bouquets By Broom_ – and I – well, I'm hardly in a position to help him financially." Mrs Lupin smiled faintly, her gaze dancing around the room, and Tonks followed it across the aging furniture, wondering what she was thinking. "He wanted to pick you bluebells – apparently he'd been out looking that morning – but, of course, they don't flower until much later in the year." Mrs Lupin leant forward conspiratorially, her gaze focused once more. "Herbology never was his strong suit."

"And so you..?"

"I'd been growing a range of hyacinths," she said. "We thought pink and blue would be the most appropriate."

Tonks smiled, remembering how pleased she'd been to get anything from him at all, let alone such wonderful flowers. "They were beautiful."

"I'm glad," Mrs Lupin said, smiling. "He wanted to send purple initially, but of course that would never have done."

"No?"

"No," she said. "They're for only the most abject of apologies."

"Really?"

"Oh yes," Mrs Lupin said, "all flowers have meanings – white to let someone know you think they're unobtrusively lovely, yellow for jealousy when it comes to hyacinths. I used to drive Remus and dear Richard mad with it."

Tonks was going to ask what pink and blue were supposed to mean, but Mrs Lupin's eyes darted to a picture on the sideboard, where a man with rather messy hair pulled a dark coat around himself against the wind and grinned out over the collar. "Is that..?"

Tonks let the question hang, and Mrs Lupin met her eye and smiled. "That's Richard," she said. "Remus' dad."

Tonks returned her smile faintly. She'd wondered what he looked like since Remus had mentioned him, and as she glanced at the picture, she realised that he was nothing like she'd imagined, but he had such an interesting face, a cheeky grin and soulful eyes, that she couldn't think why she'd ever thought he'd look any different. "Lupins," Mrs Lupin said quietly, " should you not be aware – and why would you be? – sometimes I forget that not everyone finds these things interesting – " Her eyes darted to the ceiling and she smiled wryly to herself. " – are for imagination and voraciousness. It amused him greatly when I told him that."

Tonks almost smiled; under any other circumstances, it would have amused her, too, but in these she felt it would have been a little inappropriate, and so she nodded, and fiddled with the cuff of her jumper for just a second. But, nervous as she was, she wanted to say something, because if it had been her, sitting there trying to talk warmly about her dead husband to a virtual stranger, she'd have wanted to hear something.

"I'm – " Tonks swallowed. "I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet him," she said. "He sounds like a wonderful man."

"Remus talks about him?" Mrs Lupin said, eyebrows inching towards her hairline in surprise.

"Not often," Tonks replied quietly. "But enough that I know that."

Mrs Lupin smiled, running her thumb unconsciously over the back of her hand. "Thank you," she said. "He was."

"Do you think you'll ever..?"

The question left Tonks' lips before she'd even had time to consider if it was far too impertinent a thing to ask, but Mrs Lupin didn't seem to mind it. "Marry again?" she said.

Tonks nodded, and Mrs Lupin shook her head. "Remus took me aside, once," she said, "and told me that if I met someone else, he wouldn't turn into some kind of son-monster, that he wouldn't mind as long as I was happy. I don't think so, though. He was a one-off, Richard, and I'm not sure anyone would have a hope of measuring up – I'd feel I was settling for second best, and when it comes to love, settling is not a thing one should ever do."

Tonks smiled sympathetically. "It must have been hard," she said, and then wondered if that wasn't a very stupid thing to say, because of course it was – but Mrs Lupin's gaze was soft and grateful.

"Immeasurably," she said. "On Remus, too."

"They were close?"

"Oh yes," Mrs Lupin said, a rather wistful sheen on her features. "Remus was very much the apple of Richard's eye – I think he'd always wanted a boy, someone he could teach Muggle fishing to and go camping with. That's why what happened – Remus being bitten – hit him so very hard." Tonks nodded. "Of course, Remus thinks this is all his fault," she continued, her eyes indicating the room, and Tonks frowned. "Me being here."

"Oh."

"And of course it's not," she said. "We'd have given everything – I still would – to help him, and it's not as if I'd have wanted to stay in Norfolk on my own after…."

She swallowed delicately and reached for her tea cup, seeming to take the fortification she needed from its contents, and when she looked back up, her eyes were alive with warm good humour again.

"Of course," Mrs Lupin said, gesturing to the room with an airy wave, "truth be told, I think I'm a good fifty years too young for this life, an impoverished widow imposing on her sister. I feel I should have a good deal more grey hair if not a purple rinse and a cat to properly do the role justice."

Tonks laughed. "Well, you know," she said, "if you think a purple rinse somewhere in the room is necessary, I could always – "

She screwed up her nose and turned her hair the most vivid purple she could conjure, and Mrs Lupin laughed more heartily than Tonks would previously have thought her capable of. "Now that's the girl Remus described," she said. "Delighted to meet you."

Tonks grinned, pleased that for once, at least, she'd judged the moment correctly, and for a minute or two, they settled into a rather more comfortable silence than they had before.

She thought that, if she looked for it, she could see a lot of Remus in Mrs Lupin, more than she'd expected and not in the ways she'd anticipated at all. In the last few minutes, she'd warmed to her more than she'd ever thought she would, especially after the gaudy comment and the tea debacle. "I really am sorry about the tea and stuff," Tonks said, on impulse, wincing as she thought about what she'd done. "I get dead clumsy when I'm nervous."

"It's quite all right," Mrs Lupin said, smiling at her gently. "I understand completely. I remember Richard taking me home to meet his parents for the first time. I was a total wreck."

"Really?" Tonks said, sounding a little more astounded than she'd intended that the woman sitting in front of her had ever been anything other than impeccably poised.

"Oh yes," she said, through a soft breath of laughter. "They were Muggles – I don't know if Remus told you?" Tonks nodded, and Mrs Lupin continued. "I'd never really met any proper Muggles before, and I decided not to talk about anything magical at all, because they wouldn't understand it and I thought that would be rude." She trailed off into a chuckle at the memory before meeting Tonks' eye again. "I spent at least half an hour talking about their wallpaper because I thought I'd be safe with that, and I think they thought I was frightfully dull, or perhaps a little too obsessed with paisley."

Tonks grinned. Unlikely as it seemed, in the same circumstances, she could just imagine herself doing the same thing, talking endlessly about the colour and the pattern, asking what they fixed it to the wall with, just so she didn't inadvertently cause offence by talking about something interesting.

"My dad's a Muggle-born, too," Tonks said. "When we used to go round to my gran and granddad's, my mum always used to give me a talk about what not to say in front of them – but I'd be so excited to see them, I'd forget what I could and couldn't talk about and get it all muddled up."

Mrs Lupin fixed her with an amused gaze. "I hope I haven't been too frightening," she said.

"No – it's not – it's me. I just wanted to make a good first impression, and – " Tonks rolled her eyes. " – well, I usually don't. And Remus is important to me, so it was just…."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Tonks smiled, and leaned forward a little, taking a deep breath. She thought she might as well plough on since she was on a roll, and she and Mrs Lupin appeared to have found some common ground. "I really didn't mean to imply I thought your paintings were gaudy earlier," she said quickly, before she lost her nerve, "or that I thought the place was too dark. I just – I didn't want to say the wrong thing, but trying not to say the wrong thing means you always do, doesn't it?"

"I took not the slightest bit of offence," Mrs Lupin said, laughing quietly. "And Calista is a great sport for taking me in, but she does have excessively dreary taste."

Tonks laughed too, and outside in the corridor, she heard footsteps, the creak of aging floorboards as Remus came down the stairs. He rounded the doorframe, his gaze switching between them, eyebrows high on his forehead as if he was surprised to find them laughing, and settled back on the sofa next to her, resting his hand against hers. "I hope you're not exchanging embarrassing stories about me," he said, suddenly looking rather worried.

"Oh no," Mrs Lupin replied. "I rather thought we'd save those for when you were back. It's more fun when we can watch you squirm."

She met Tonks' eye with a brief, conspiratorial twinkle, and grinned, and Tonks wondered what on earth she'd been worried about. Suddenly, it seemed obvious that any woman related to Remus would be exactly like this.

"Evidently I shouldn't have left you alone," he said. "One of you appears to have been a bad influence on the other, and I'm not entirely sure which. Either way, it appears I get to be the butt of jokes…." He trailed off into a would-be irritated huff, and then smiled.

"Anything important?" Tonks said, gesturing towards the hall where Remus had taken the original Patronus message. Remus shook his head.

"Mad-Eye just wanted a quick word about a situation we've been monitoring – and his quick words do tend to turn into half-hour lectures. It's nothing that can't wait," he said, and Tonks smiled, hooking her little finger over his on the sofa.

"Ok, then," she said, glancing across the room and returning Mrs Lupin's conspiratorial twinkle. "In that case, I think it's about time I saw some embarrassing baby photos."

They passed the rest of the afternoon with pleasant conversation. Mrs Lupin gladly – and in spite of his vigorous protests – showed Tonks pictures of Remus as a boy. There were ones of him by a pond, somewhere, digging around in the weeds, apparently looking for Grindylows, and others of him in various tree houses and makeshift castles he and his father had built. There were others when he was older, too, of him and Sirius and James and Peter in the woods, with dirt on their faces and tears in their clothes, smiling for all they were worth. There were various family functions, too: birthdays with just the three of them, Remus and his parents and a variety of large, colourfully decorated cakes; and a wedding where a fourteen year old Remus had been forced into dress robes that he assured Tonks were very fashionable at the time, despite how ridiculous they appeared to be now.

In the early evening, Remus' aunt Calista and her husband Nicodemus appeared in the fireplace, brushing ash from their hair and complaining about how busy Diagon Alley was these days on a Saturday. Calista was shorter and curvier than her sister, with a good-natured face and a rather plummy voice, and Nicodemus was tall and stately-looking, with a short thatch of grey hair and an impressive moustache that curled out at both sides. He looked a little taken aback to have a purple-haired witch in his kitchen, but, to his credit, when Tonks extended her hand, he took it anyway, and grasped it firmly, telling her the colour was fetching, albeit a little unconvincingly.

Over dinner, they talked about Nicodemus' work in wizarding insurance, how he was surprised more people didn't take it out when there were so many unpleasant accidents that could befall the modern witch or wizard – exploding faulty cauldrons, accidental poisoning, not to mention broom collisions, which were apparently more frequent than many believed. He was horrified that Tonks hadn't taken out some kind of policy, what with her being in such a dangerous line of work, and even offered her a discount – but Tonks managed to halt him mid-sales pitch by making an overenthusiastic play for a cherry tomato with her fork and accidentally firing it at him.

There had been wine and laughter, and she liked watching Remus talk to his family, how easily he moved from one anecdote to the next – tales of teaching at Hogwarts to things he'd done at school – how they were woven seamlessly with his mother and aunt swapping stories about their time at Hogwarts, too.

Afterwards, she and Remus offered to do the washing up while Mrs Lupin and the others found something to listen to on the WWN. Tonks had joked, of course, apologised in advance for any breakages, but Mrs Lupin had just smiled and directed her to the salad bowl, which was Calista's and which she'd never really liked and said if she could accidentally smash that, it'd be much appreciated.

But luckily, her clumsy fingers had been remarkably well-behaved, and she hadn't dropped as much as a bubble.

Tonks finished drying the final mug Remus had handed her and set it back on the dresser, pocketing her wand and turning round to rest against the dark wood. "Your mum's lovely," Tonks said.

Remus grinned up at her from the table, where he was neatly stacking placemats, his brow dipping in confusion at the same time. "Of course she is," he said. "I've no idea why you ever thought otherwise."

Tonks hummed in thought. Why _had_ she expected the worst, been so quick to assume –

She closed her eyes as realisation dawned and stared her square in the face with a blinding light. She wanted to smack herself on the forehead. Of course she hadn't thought otherwise _at all_. She'd had the usual meeting-parents jitters, but it wasn't until –

"Sirius is a total bastard," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

"That is, I believe, the general consensus," Remus said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"No, I mean – "

Tonks sighed. She was supposed to be an Auror. She was supposed to be able to spot deception, villainy, precisely this kind of thing _in her sleep_ – and normally she could – but for some reason, her dear cousin had found a way to pull the wool over her eyes.

"What did he do?" Remus said, coming over to lean on the dresser beside her, gazing down at her with amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Tonks rolled her eyes, not sure she wanted to let him know how easily she'd been fooled. "I asked him what your mum was like," she said. "And he said – "

"Let me guess," Remus said. "He said that she wouldn't approve of you for any number of reasons?"

"Actually, it was something about me getting a warmer reception from a herring under a Freezing Charm on the outer edges of the Arctic Circle."

"I suppose he gets a point for an interesting metaphor," Remus said, sniggering.

Tonks let out a huff of disapproval, although she hadn't quite decided if she was more angry at him for playing a trick like this on her, or herself for falling for it. "And, of course," Remus continued, rather more seriously this time, "because he'd said all of that and put you on edge, you were trying so hard to be something you're not, and – "

"I said all the wrong things and spilt tea everywhere." She sighed with weary resignation. "He's such a bastard."

"I know."

Remus nudged her with his shoulder, and sympathetic as his tone had been, he smiled, too, and she could tell it amused him that she'd fallen for it. She clenched her jaw and looked away, trying not to laugh. "I mean what if I'd really messed this up?" she said. "What if I'd done something worse? He knows what I'm like."

"He doesn't think," Remus said softly, turning to face her a little and placing his hand on her arm. "To him, it's all fun and games. He probably thinks you'd figure it out, charm mum anyway, and we'd laugh about it later, because that's what he'd do."

"I know – "

"He just doesn't think." His voice was even softer as he reiterated, his hand gently rubbing her arm in a way that was almost conciliatory, even though it wasn't his fault.

Tonks met his eye, and he tilted his head down a little, his eyes sparkling out at her from beneath his fringe. "Plus, he is, as I believe we've already covered, a bastard of the highest order."

She laughed, and Remus took her face in his hand and kissed her.

Instantly, she felt lighter, as if she could take off without a broom to help her if only she wanted to, and she inched closer, making the most of the moment, even though she knew that the kitchen setting precluded her from making of it what she'd like to.

As Remus moved away again, she bit her lip, and he grinned. "Now," he said, "since the washing up is done, I believe, in the sitting room, is a glass of brandy with your name on it. And, if you're really good, I'll let you impress my relatives further by allowing you to beat me at chess."

Tonks sniggered. "The only problem with that being," she said, turning to leave, "that no-one who'd ever seen you play before would believe beating _you_ at chess was impressive."

As she made for the hall, Tonks glanced over her shoulder and grinned, just catching Remus' open-mouthed expression of mock-utter outrage as he dramatically clutched at his chest.

In the sitting room, which now had a fire blazing in the grate, giving it a much cosier feel, Calista had found some kind of easy listening programme on the WWN, and they settled in for the night, eschewing the chess in favour of a card game Tonks had never played before that was supposedly based on some kind of Muggle horse race. She didn't quite understand the rules, but kept winning anyway, much to Remus' grudging amusement.

After a brief exchange with Remus' mother where she'd enquired with a rather pained and embarrassed expression as she glanced at the double bed whether that would be all right or if Remus needed blankets for the sofa, they retired to the guest room, and closed the door, listening to Mrs Lupin's footsteps retreating down the corridor and the door to her room closing.

The guest room was lovely – small, but neat, with a duvet covered in pink and green flowers on the bed, and matching stripped pine bedside tables, but she was rather too tired to fully appreciate more than that the bed looked squashy and inviting.

Tonks routed in her pocket for her things, dropped them on the bed and restored them to full size. With eyelids heavy from brandy and a long day, she searched in her bag for her pyjamas, thinking that whilst the day had turned out to be nothing like as stressful as she'd initially anticipated, it had been knackering all the same.

She pulled on her pyjamas and slid into bed, and Remus climbed in beside her, the mattress sagging and creaking under their weight. He muttered to turn off the lights, and shifted closer, rolling towards her a little, raising his hand to her face and letting his fingers get lost in her hair. "I'm glad you're purple again," he murmured.

"I'll have you know I borrowed that hair from an advert for the best lather-rinse-repeat potions known to witch kind," she said mock-huffily, and he laughed. "You didn't like it?"

She rested her hand lightly on his waist beneath the duvet, easing a little closer and worming her fingers underneath the soft fabric of his T shirt. "It was lovely," he said, and even though she knew he could barely see her through the dark, she rolled her eyes.

"Lovely means twee," she said.

"Lovely means lovely," he replied. "And it was." He inched closer, so close she could feel his breath on her lips. "It's just nice to have you back."

He closed the distance between them and kissed her softly, and as warmth shot through her, she shut her eyes and pulled him to her, her fingers tightening on his waist. His kisses still made her insides see stars, and she loved moments like this with him, when it was just them, in the dark, and she could just make out the outline of his features, feel him, rather than see him, as if he was nothing but lips and hands and the sensations he was causing.

He kissed her more intently, and she echoed his intensity, working her fingers up over his shoulders as he rolled her onto her back. They both sniggered rather breathily against the other's lips as the bed groaned a protest beneath them, and Remus pulled away a little, trailing delicious warm kisses along her jaw. She wrapped her arms around his neck, revelling in the warmth of his body and the way he made her blood careen through her veins, and when his lips returned to hers, she didn't even bother trying to bite back a whispered murmur of delight.

Their touches became more loaded and purposeful – but every time one of them moved, the bed beneath them creaked so loudly she thought it was probably audible out at sea. She pulled away a little, sniggering slightly. "This bed's very noisy," she whispered. "Is it some kind of chastity thing?"

"I don't think so," he said. "There's every chance I was conceived in this bed."

Tonks' eyebrows darted up in surprise. "What?"

Remus chuckled, shifting a little to kiss her neck and getting another creak from the bed for his troubles. "My parents used to come here every summer," he said, his breath as he spoke tickling her skin almost as much as the kisses he placed there, "even before I was born. I was born in March – count back, I was probably conceived in June, when they would have been here. In the guest room."

Tonks wove her fingers into his hair and pulled his face up to hers. "It's weird that you've worked that out, you know," she said, and he laughed.

"I know."

He kissed her softly and then rolled away, flopping down on the bed next to her, the springs veritably wailing beneath him, and when she peered at him questioningly, he said, "You said it was noisy."

She moved closer, pressing herself into his side and settling her fingers on his stomach.

"Yes, noisy," she said, shifting to place a kiss on the exact spot near his ear that she knew made him weak at the knees. "Not too noisy." She peppered kisses down the side of his throat, drawing her hand up over his stomach in a way he normally found irresistible. "We'll just have to keep quiet to make up for it."

Through the darkness she could just make out him raising an eyebrow at her and smirking disbelievingly. "What?" she whispered.

"Nothing," he said, chuckling quietly to himself.

She propped herself up on one elbow and glared at him. "What?" she said, and he looked away, biting back a laugh.

"Nothing – just – I mean, are you sure you can?"

"Me?" she said, swatting him on the shoulder. "I'm not the one who – "

He cut her off by sitting up a little and kissing her again, and, after a moment, she forgot what she was annoyed about and pressed him back against the mattress. "We could always cast a silencing charm," she murmured.

"Oh but if we cast one now," he returned, between kisses that made her insides melt, " they'll know what we're up to."

"Hmm…" She drew her fingers up over his chest, traced patterns on his neck. As she shifted closer, the bed groaned beneath her, and she giggled. "Of course," she said, "it already sounds like we're doing it so we might as well…."

Remus' hands slid into her hair, insisting that she return her lips to his for a moment before he pulled away again. "Easy for you to say," he muttered, "it's my mother in the next room."

"I'm the one trying to make a good impression, though," she said, lifting the hem of his T shirt and sliding her hands underneath.

"I suppose if we were at your parents' you'd want to have at it on the dinner table between courses?"

She sighed at him, but she could just make out a boyish smile and his eyes shining in the dark, and couldn't be annoyed with him, and when he pulled her to him, and his fingers slipped beneath her pyjama top and whispered dance steps across her skin, she remembered why she'd been so racked with worry earlier.

It wasn't really to do with Sirius at all, the doubts he'd sewn, or even about how inept she was with fancy heirloom china and Ginger Newts. It was all about the man pressed beneath her on a noisy mattress, and how important he was to her, and by association, how important anyone who was important to him, and their approval, became to her.

* * *

The next morning, they got up to bacon sandwiches and Mrs Lupin suggested that after breakfast, Remus should take Tonks for a walk on the beach. She was keen to agree and make the most of the sea air, and so she found herself back on the cliff top with the wind ruffling her hair much as it had the day before, but in a rather different frame of mind.

"Where are we going?" she said.

"Down there," Remus said, pointing to the small picture postcard beach. "We'll have to Apparate."

"Isn't there a Muggle way?"

"No," he said, leaning in close, "not from here. You see the hut with the blue door?"

She followed his gaze to a line of small, white huts nestled into the bottom of the cliffs. "Hmm."

"Well, that's our destination."

"Oh, Ok," she said. She checked the hilltops quickly for prying eyes, but the only eyes on them were the property of a couple of rather indignant-looking seagulls, and so after a quick, "see you down there," she Apparated.

Tonks opened her eyes and found herself in a small, wooden shack with benches on the walls, and sand and crisp, black seaweed on the floor, the smell of salt and driftwood all around. Remus appeared next to her seconds later, the seaweed crunching under his feet, and he grinned. "Ready?" he said, and she nodded, curling her fingers into his as he lead her out of the hut and onto the beach.

The sand was still damp in places from the retreating tide, and the wind whistled through the cove and nipped at her face and fingers, but still it was like stepping onto a postcard. Above them, the sky was impossibly blue with thin clouds streaked through it, and the sea rose up to meet it and match its colour on the horizon. She pulled her hair back from her face and held it on her shoulder, taking in the slate rocks and looking back up at the house, way up on the cliffs above, before they started to walk.

"So what do you think?" Remus said, draping his arm casually around her shoulders and pulling her closer against the chill of the wind. "Are they endearingly eccentric or are you going to run for the hills because they're nuts?"

Tonks turned towards him a little and chuckled quietly into the neck of his shirt. "I like them," she said.

"Good."

He smiled down at her briefly and then looked away towards the steep cliffs on the other side of the cove, the wind flapping in his hair. "What do they think of me?" she said, peering up at him and offering him a cheeky smile, because she really couldn't resist the question.

"They adore you," he said, his arm tightening around her. "Just like I said they would."

"Really?"

"Of course they do. The second you left the room they were interrogating me about how on earth I managed to get you."

She huddled further into him, pushing a strand of purple hair behind her ear in a fruitless attempt to stop it getting in her eyes. Yesterday, she'd imagined an altogether different kind of interrogation, about what on earth he was doing with such an idiot and when he was going to get rid of her and find a proper girlfriend, and she still couldn't quite believe – nice as they'd all been to her over breakfast, that she'd managed to inspire any other kind of conversation. "What did you tell them?" she asked, grinning up at him.

"Magic," he said.

Tonks laughed, and his grip tightened. "Magic?" she said. "You old romantic."

"Nothing romantic about it," he said, and he battled a grin and looked away down the shoreline, off towards the cliffs in the distance. "I told them I, obviously, had you under the Imperius curse. It's the only explanation."

She laughed again, and when he met her gaze, eyes dancing with amusement, dug him in the ribs in admonishment and tickled him, making him squirm away from her fingers. He batted away her hand and she relented after a moment, and although he took a few strides across the sand with protest mock-huffiness, he pulled her back to him and nestled her into his side eventually.

After a little while they stopped and sat down, even though it wasn't really the weather for it and the sand was still slightly damp, and Remus met her gaze and held it. For a moment he paused, his lips slightly parted as if he was about to say something – but then a small crease appeared between his eyebrows and he obviously thought better of it. He looked away towards the horizon, his eyes tracing the bobbing of a buoy on the water and then he looked back and smiled. She wondered what it was that he'd been about to say, but there was little point in trying to guess, because sometimes what he was thinking was as charmed to read as something else as were his postcards.

"It's a shame the ice cream place isn't open," he said, and Tonks swept her hair back from her face as it whipped around her.

"Yes," she said, "I always say you can never properly enjoy gale-force winds without a Cornetto in your hand."

He chuckled softly, and they lapsed into silence for a moment, watching seagulls dive and soar above the receding waters. "It's been nice, this," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

"It has."

"I like pretending."

"Pretending?" he asked, turning towards her a little and raising his eyebrows inquisitively.

"Hmm," she murmured, smiling because she supposed it did sound a bit odd. "I mean, this has been quite normal, in a way, but tomorrow you'll be plotting with Mad-Eye, and there'll be whispers in the kitchen about things that shouldn't be happening, and Sirius'll be shouting at Kreacher, and I'll be at work all day listening for hints of things I shouldn't know about and – I don't know. Sometimes it's just nice to get away from that."

Remus nodded gently and then rested his chin on her hair. "I know what you mean," he said. "Maybe we should try and get away more often. I mean I can't afford anything fancy, but – "

"Your mum said you and your dad used to go camping."

"Yes," he said, chuckling slightly and making the sound reverberate right through her body, "we did. We even tried Muggle camping, once, but that proved a little bit too un-fancy for both of us."

"Glad to hear it," she said, snuggling closer, further into his side.

"You're not much one for campfire songs about whiskey and regret, then?" he said, and she sniggered at the thought.

"Not really," she said. "You saw what I did with tea and biscuits in a perfectly hospitable lounge – imagine the mess I could make with tent pegs and outdoor fires."

He let out a sigh of amusement that tickled her hair, and placed a kiss on the top of her head. "We'll have to think of something else, then," he said.

"Well that won't be a problem, will it?" she said, glancing up and seeing him raise his eyebrows questioningly.

"Won't it?"

"No," she said, a slow smile creeping over her face. "Your mum told me lupins stand for imagination."

"Did she now?" he said, and looked away, smiling. "I really have no excuses, then."

They watched the seagulls for another moment, and then a particularly chilly gust snuck beneath her jumper, making Tonks shiver. "Come on," Remus said, taking her hand, standing up and pulling her to her feet, "we'd better get back before we freeze." Tonks twined her fingers with his and he smiled at her briefly and then looked towards the house, a frown of amused consternation on his brow. "And I must have a word with my mother about the kind of information she divulges…" he said, and Tonks laughed.

* * *

As Tonks had suspected would be the case, the tranquillity they'd enjoyed at Mrs Lupin's didn't last much beyond them taking a final breath of sea air and Apparating home.

They fell straight back into their lives as they had been, with Remus finding a pile of papers he could barely see over the top of waiting for him at Grimmauld Place, and Tonks needing an early night to prepare for a dawn start the next day.

Even with the opportunity to ignore Sirius' request for a detailed description of how things had gone (which Remus had assured her was the best way to get her own back, and, judging by the petulant pout her cousin had offered her over breakfast, he was right) presenting itself, Monday morning came all too soon, and the day was made even more fraught by the arrival, later, of the news that Dumbledore had been sacked.

The Order generally was sent into frantic conversation about where he might be, or how cool his departure sounded from Kingsley's reports, and Sirius dissolved into a lengthy rant about 'that bloody Umbridge mare' and what he'd like to do to her, before apparently deciding that the best way of dealing with the situation was to try and drink his own weight in Firewhiskey.

There were plans to lay, theories to discuss, endless conversations about Umbridge – during which Remus was especially quiet, although radiating distaste for her without really having to voice it – and what the Ministry's plans for Hogwarts were, but Tonks felt oddly detached from it all.

Of course she cared; she wouldn't have taken the offer to join the Order otherwise, but she couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for debating the thinking of a woman whose rationale completely defied logic.

And it wasn't even that. The Order, and who they both were, had always come between her and Remus, in a way, and Remus' mum had been right when she'd wondered how on earth he'd found the time to meet anyone. Tonks didn't doubt for a second that her mum would say exactly the same thing about her, too.

She and Remus made time for each other when they could, but it was snatched moments, late nights when the world had gone to bed, the odd evening off when their schedules permitted –

And she knew there was no choice, it was just the way things were, but the last few days had given her a glimpse of what it might be like when all of this was over, when it was just the two of them, free to do normal things like visit relatives and laugh at their eccentricities. It had been delicious.

It didn't seem – well, fair, that she'd met someone as wonderful as Remus, but didn't get all the chances she'd have liked to spend time with him. With a snort of amusement at the thought that she'd caught Sirius' petulance, she ran a hand through her hair and went back to trying to concentrate on whatever Mad-Eye was saying.

Later that night, with her really none the wiser about what Mad-Eye had been getting at, they fell into bed. It was so late that she debated writing off sleep altogether, but the pull of Remus in pyjamas proved too much for her, and she could hardly complain about them not spending enough time together if she didn't take every chance there was.

They lay, side by side in the dark, staring at the ceiling above their respective pillows, and every time she glanced at him, Remus looked utterly lost in thought. Tonks was too tired to really say anything important or profound about the situation, but too awake and alert to sleep, and so they exchanged a couple of epithets of general disbelief about Dumbledore, and then she lay, listening to his breathing.

She was just about to say something – nothing especially intelligent, a joke about so much for make-believe by the sea, when Remus turned towards her.

He hesitated for a moment, then shifted closer, and she felt his breath, warm on her ear.

For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead, he took a quick breath, and then whispered the words, "I love you," right in her ear, but so quietly that she wasn't sure he'd said anything at all.

Then he rolled away again, folding his arms neatly across his chest on top of the duvet as if he'd said something utterly inconsequential.

"What?" she said, her voice a little higher in pitch than usual.

He couldn't possibly have –

"You heard," he said, his voice dancing with amusement. "Don't make me say it again."

"Why not?" Tonks said, echoing his amusement, even though her heart was thundering.

"Because I'll blush," he said, intently studying the ceiling, "and blushing in a man of my age is unseemly."

Tonks propped herself up on one elbow and raised her hand to her mouth to contain a giggle, although she wasn't sure whether it pertained more to the idea of him blushing or to nervous exuberance about what he'd said.

Remus carried on staring at the ceiling, his fingers laced together on his chest, refusing to meet her eye, even as his cheek twitched, giving away that he was fighting a smile.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't make a big thing of it," he said.

"Don't make a – "

Tonks half-laughed, still not quite able to believe, regardless of how many hints and clues there might have been in word and deed, what he'd said, and stammered her way through some kind of quite incoherent protest about this being exactly the kind of thing that people tended to want to make a big thing of.

He chuckled, his eyes still fixed on a spot on the ceiling, and Tonks' fingers tightened on her mouth as she wondered what on earth to do.

But only one thing seemed even remotely appropriate, and so she pressed her lips tightly together for a moment, and then shifted towards him and whispered, "I love you too," right in his ear, so close that his hair tickled her nose.

He turned his head on the pillow and met her eye. "Really?" he said, and she laughed at the surprise in his eyes, and nodded. His eyes twinkled, and she bit her lip, unable to contain the smile pulling on it. "Oh," he said, voice bending under the weight of a hefty smile.

Remus looked away for a second and sniggered, and then shifted his gaze back to hers. She inched forward a little and so did he, and when their lips met, she thought it was the softest, most exquisite kiss they'd ever shared.

His lips were warm and felt like home, and even though his kisses were slow and gentle she could feel the weight of what he felt behind them. It was if there was magic all around them – the hairs on her arms stood to attention and her insides glowed at the thought of the words he'd said, and truth be told, it was more dizzying than the most complex and powerful magic she'd ever performed.

He eased himself on top of her and brushed her hair back from her temple, peering down at her, a smile tugging on his lips but uncertainty in his eyes, too, as they roved her face. "You don't have to say it just because I – "

"I'm not," she said quietly, her voice catching a little in her throat. She met his gaze and smiled. "I've wanted to say it for a while. I just didn't want to scare you off."

"Oh." His eyes flickered with amusement, and he smiled. "I wanted to say it the other day on the beach," he said, glancing at the headboard for a second and sniggering quietly. "Probably should have done," he added, "it would have been a bit more romantic."

She let out an amused sigh, and contemplated swatting him on the shoulder playfully, or saying something about all big, romantic declarations warranting gale-force winds and damp sand, but instead she found she wanted to be serious. "Why didn't you?"

"Just – " He stopped and took a breath. "Like you said," he said. "I didn't want to scare you off."

She pressed the 'oh' she had half-formed on her lips against his instead, sliding her hands up his back and into his hair, and as his lips shifted against hers, there it was again, the prickle of energy in the air that gave her goose bumps and made her insides shiver.

She sighed into him, or he into her, she wasn't sure which, and their kisses turned from languid to passionate and then back again. He reached for the hem of her T shirt and inched it up, pressing his hips down onto hers. "Oh," she said, her voice low and teasing, as he moved a little to cover her neck in kisses "so _now_ you want to make a big thing of it?"

Remus sniggered against her throat for a moment before leaning back far enough to meet her eye. One eyebrow twitched up slightly and then he glanced down, clearly containing a laugh with some difficulty. "Well I wouldn't say a big thing," he said, eyebrow darting higher in amusement, "but _some_thing."

She laughed, and then kissed him, and then did both at the same time, thinking that this was what she loved about him, how he didn't need a romantic setting for her to feel like she was special to him, that everything with him felt wonderful, just because he was there.

His kisses deepened, and she murmured her approval against his lips, working his T shirt up over his shoulders.

It felt almost unbelievable that a thing like love existed at all at such a time and under the circumstances they found themselves in, and it was more unbelievable still that Remus would feel that way about her.

But here it was and he really did, and, ordinary as their surroundings were, here, in his mouldy room, and nagging as the thought was that as far as the world was concerned, 'I love you' didn't change anything, everything felt completely, wonderfully, ethereal.

The world would still be there in the morning, she thought, demanding their attention, pulling them in different directions, keeping them apart when they'd rather not be; but for now, they were together and as isolated from all that as they ever had been on the beach.

And at least now, she thought, when they _were_ apart, they'd be certain of what they had to come back to, and she couldn't help thinking that that alone would make everything else more bearable, whether it was not having the time they'd like, worry about how the war would end, or something altogether more earth-shattering, like dropped Ginger Newts, and potentially disapproving mothers.

* * *

**A/N: A million thank yous to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and anyone who does so again gets a three-little-word-based werewolf treat: Romantic Remus does it by candlelight, Mischievous Remus throws you off the scent with a dirty limerick that has the words in the last line, Flirty Remus says it with a twinkle in his eye and a string of compliments, and Shy Remus get embarrassed and fumbles it, but it's desperately endearing anyway ;). **

**And I know it's been a while, so everyone who waited patiently and was understanding about my real life situation gets extra Remus kisses. Everyone who _wasn't _gets early morning-breath Umbridge ones. With tongue. ;)**


	19. Location, Situation, Status

"_Rennervate_!"

The word floated down towards her through the darkness, and all Tonks could think was that it was the wrong voice.

She knew that that didn't make any sense – but it was the only thing she could think, the only thought that seemed real. Everything else was fog, indistinct, beyond her grasp somehow – and dark, everything was dark, and she couldn't quite think why. There'd been light a moment ago, hadn't there?

Now she thought about it, she wasn't sure.

She tried to focus, remembering her training: _think of the basics, girl, location, situation, status – anything else is irrelevant. _

Location, situation, status. Said like that, it sounded so simple, but when her brain felt like fog it was anything but. What was it Mad-Eye had always said? _The only things you need to know are am I alive and am I in danger._ She just needed to think.

Alive? Probably. In danger? Potentially.

Location, situation, status.

Tonks took them in reverse order. Shewas cold, she was certain of that, and there was an odd, oppressive ache in her chest, as if someone very heavy was sitting on her, and where she was lying wasn't comfortable – it was stony –

Where had she been? What was the last thing she remembered?

She thought, hard, grasping in the darkness for some detail to cling to, but, hard as she thought, there was nothing but fog. She felt as if she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, almost – although logically she knew that she must be, otherwise it seemed unlikely that she'd be thinking anything at all.

Location, situation, status –

She had her status and her situation pegged, but where _had_ she been?

She tried to think. It was in her head somewhere, she knew it was – she just had to –

All of a sudden, something swirled out of the fog towards her, and instinctively she tried to duck, but couldn't. She braced, wondering if she had her wand –

But it was just an image – a place – Grimmauld –

It danced around her, misty at the edges, then settled as if she was actually there, had dropped, somehow, into a Pensieve memory, although she didn't think it was possible that that was what had happened, because it wouldn't account for the cold –

A portkey? Had she taken a portkey?

But that didn't make sense either because the room looked real, it was correct in every detail, the carpet was threadbare in exactly the right places, the pictures on the walls hung at just the right wrong angles, and yet she knew it wasn't. People swam into the scene as it came into sharper focus, and she wasn't at all surprised to see them – she'd known they were coming –

She'd seen this before, hadn't she?

Tonks shook her head to try and clear it, to try and make her thoughts less dull and foggy. It was the drawing room, she thought – maybe it was a Pensieve after all – and Remus was there, Sirius, too – and her – and they were drinking red wine, all of them –

She sat on the sofa with Remus, their legs tangled and her head on his shoulder, and Sirius was sprawled on the floor, laughing at them. They didn't appear to be able to see her, which ruled out a time-turner – they just carried on as if nothing untoward had happened.

It was rather disconcerting, she thought, to see herself from this angle, not from the inside. It was fascinating, too, to watch Remus' fingers mingle with hers on her thigh, because she'd felt that, knew the sensations of his touch better than she'd known nearly anything, and yet _seeing_ it, like this, how at ease he seemed –

Tonks shuddered a little in delight at the thought.

Sirius abandoned his glass and reached for the bottle of wine, taking a swig from it – and Tonks smiled. She remembered it now, could pick it out of the dozens of evenings they'd spent like this lately. They were drinking that atrocious goblin wine because there was nothing else left, except for some suspiciously-sediment-laden gin none of them had really wanted to chance – at least not sober.

Remus grimaced at Sirius and told him that just because he _was_ a former convict, it was no need to act like one, and Sirius chuckled, and Summoned a cushion to hurl at him. Remus deftly dodged and caught it, meeting her gaze and rolling his eyes at Sirius' errant behaviour.

Sirius looked at them for a moment, then made some joke about when Remus planned on making it official and settling down, that as a wanted criminal, the best he could hope for was to be a slightly-insane yet rakishly-handsome uncle, and that Moony should get his act together and get on with it.

Remus tittered and met her eye apologetically –

Tonks' stomach lurched as she watched it all unfold again, feeling exactly what she'd felt before. She'd known Sirius was joking, but she couldn't honestly say that the idea of Remus, and her, and _forever,_ and all that that entailed, scared her as much as it might have done, once upon a time. In fact, it seemed rather appealing.

She'd wanted to talk to Remus about it, but later that evening, when they'd climbed into bed, he'd tasted of red wine, and it was all the more palatable on his lips than it had been in her glass, and between that and the kisses he bestowed on her throat, her shoulder, her stomach, she'd found herself far too distracted to ask him much of anything.

Her insides fluttered a jolt of panic as she wondered if now, she'd ever get the chance.

The image gave way – dissolved or dispersed around her, and now they were on a mission, bundled up against a surprisingly chill spring breeze. They were on Dartmoor – she recognised it instantly – and Tonks watched as Remus noticed her patting her palms together to try and stave off the cold, took her hands in his and pointed his wand at her gloves to cast one of his special heating charms on them. She smiled at him, said something she couldn't remember or quite make out – but whatever it was, it made his eyebrows leap coquettishly on his forehead, and then she saw herself giggle at whatever he replied with, before taking his arm and leading him across the heather to their destination, a Bronze Age stone circle that the Death Eaters were allegedly using as some kind of meeting point.

All of a sudden, that image was gone, and Tonks was alone in a field in Devon – similar in location, but completely different in atmosphere. The air was frosty, the sky littered with stars, and below them, patchy clouds hung, immobile, in the hostile sky. Trees stretched their clutching, bent fingers upwards, and she wondered if Mad-Eye had chosen the place specifically because it was spooky and might unnerve her.

Job done, she'd thought, at the time, and she found it no less unnerving now.

Tonks remembered it clearly – those trees with their gnarled branches, the cruel, twisted faces she'd imagined she could see in the bark, and as she watched the younger version of herself approach the cottage, her heart pounded even though she knew she'd lived to tell the tale.

Tonks watched as she pushed the door open, and remembered how she'd paused on the threshold, heard the faint sound of breathing. As she'd taken that step into the pitch black room, her grip on her wand so tight she couldn't feel her fingers, she'd hoped she was really as up to the challenge as Mad-Eye seemed to think she was.

Tonks wanted to stay, to see what happened next –

But the cottage and the trees twirled away.

What was going on? Mad-Eye had always said that in a situation like this, dealing with the unknown, the only plan of attack was to go through the options one by one, eliminate what it _wasn't_ until you were left with a conclusion –

But it wasn't a time-turner, a portkey, or a pensieve, she didn't think, and he'd never mentioned what to do if you'd eliminated all the options, and there was no conclusion left to draw.

Another image settled around her, dense and solid and so real-seeming she wanted to reach out and touch it, but knew there'd be nothing there if she did –

This time, they were in bed, she and Remus, and she was in his lap, with his arms around her, his fingers in her hair. Tonks almost wanted to look away, but then Remus kissed her, and all too well she remembered the prickle of desire in her stomach, and she couldn't help but watch as they shifted together and covered each other's shoulders with kisses. She remembered that night, even though there had been lots that they'd spent tangled together, making crazy shapes under the sheets. That night, after dinner, Sirius had been washing up, and Remus had caught her hand and whispered to her, and they'd snuck upstairs, leaving Sirius talking to himself in the kitchen.

And the night in itself hadn't been anything special, but somehow, when they'd moved together, she'd felt as if some force she couldn't see but was as vivid and real as anything had flowed between them, and –

She was in the kitchen, suddenly, and it was all there, every detail – the table, scratched from years of use, plates in the sink, waiting to be dealt with, the pantry door, slightly ajar because it never did close properly –

There was cocoa in chipped mugs on the table, a packet of biscuits, now half empty, and Remus sat next to her. They were swapping stories, anecdotes, laughing, even though the clock on the wall informed them both that it was three o'clock in the morning.

Tonks smiled. At the time, she'd known that she should leave, go home to bed, or crawl up the stairs to one of the spare rooms, but she hadn't, because she and Remus had flirted for months, and she'd thought that might have been the night one of them did something about it. Or at the very least, she'd thought it was a distinct enough possibility that she didn't want to risk going to bed before she absolutely had to, just in case.

And nothing _had_ happened, not in the strictest sense, but she hadn't regretted staying out late, even though it had left her with bags under her eyes to morph away the next morning. In that kitchen with him, with his soft grey eyes on hers, with him making her laugh and smiling when she did, she'd felt more alive than she ever had anywhere else, and who would have willingly left that behind, even at three in the morning?

Tonks wanted to see more of that, to see Remus tell the story about him and Sirius being attacked by horklumps again, but instead, she was in the drawing room with Sirius, waiting for Remus to come home. He was away on a mission with Mad-Eye, and they were both pretending not to be worried, hiding it behind talk of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

It was a childish conversation, a hark back to something they both, she suspected, would have liked to remember for real, but at the time, she'd been grateful for the distraction – they both had.

Tonks watched as Sirius told her that he'd never been ambitious, really, and she said that it was a good job, because look what he'd amounted to – he laughed then, just like she remembered, and said 'good point', that if nothing else, he'd at least lived down to his mother's expectations.

After a moment they grew more serious, and Tonks told him all about why, growing up, she'd wanted to be an Auror, that she'd seen her mum and dad looking over their shoulders, wondering if they were safe, and she'd never wanted to live like that.

He told her that all he really wanted was to be exonerated – not because he cared what the world thought of him because Moony and Harry knew the truth and that was enough – but because he'd like to go out, once in a while, see what lay beyond the front door before he forgot what freedom looked like.

They talked a lot of nonsense too, as she recalled. Wanting to cheer him up, she'd said that that was a crap ambition, that anyone calling himself a Marauder should be able to do better than that, and that was when he'd joked that he'd always harboured a secret ambition to be on a Chocolate Frog card. They'd spent an hour after that coming up with wording for him, until the front door had creaked and they'd heard Remus' footsteps, and smiled at each other in relief.

In an instant, that was gone too, and Tonks was in her own flat.

For a second, it was disorienting, because she appeared to be the only person there, but then she moved, and noticed that she and Remus were curled up on her sofa, listening to some album she'd forgotten the name of. She remembered the night – it was after the full moon, and Remus was sleepy, although unwilling to admit it and go to bed because he wanted to hear about her day.

She told him about some new evidence that had come to light in a case she'd been working on, and he played idly with her hair and murmured questions that became more and more indistinct as he drifted off, his chin resting on her forehead.

She didn't wake him, just watched him sleep for ages, listening to his steady breathing, glad he was home safe and sound, that another full moon had passed and he didn't have to face it for another couple of weeks.

Then that was gone –

She was ten, at her gran's, trying desperately not to give in to the urge to make her hair how she felt. Gran had bought her candy floss on the pier and they walked along eating it, with Tonks trying not to get it all over her face, and failing.

They were talking about school, about the letter she'd received that morning and what it meant, and Tonks remembered being torn between excitement, wanting to go right now, and feeling a little bit scared, because she'd never had to be on her own before, never had to make friends.

Gran told her that everyone would be in the same boat so not to worry, that a smile went a long way, and said who wouldn't like her, once they got to know her? Tonks remembered how she'd glowed on the inside walking along that pier, and once they were back at Gran's house, watching some soap opera about farming, she'd tried to make her hair the exact same colour as the candy floss, just to see if she could.

Tonks wanted to watch – she'd only ever seen herself morph in pictures and in the mirror – but then she was back at Grimmauld again.

What _was_ going on? These were memories, weren't they – _her_ memories –

But she couldn't just leap between them forever, could she? And why was she seeing them at all?

That they were happy memories was the really baffling thing. That ruled out Dementors, didn't it? And some people believed that there were Dark spells that could force you to relive bad memories in battle to distract you – but this couldn't be that, could it, because who would choose for her to re-live the moments that made her feel like she could do anything, beat anything, she wanted?

She tried to think what else it could be, but her brain felt unequal to the task, and before she got very far into trying to figure out the connection between Remus on a sofa and candy floss with her gran, the image she was surrounded by took her over, demanded her full attention.

Sirius was in a reasonable humour because Remus had made his favourite sandwiches for dinner, and they were chatting about nothing, avoiding the subject of Sirius' frustration with his situation, avoiding discussing the useful things they'd been doing for the Order, just in case it sent him off into one of his sulks.

Sirius joked about them again, as he often did with a snigger on his lips and something approaching approval in his eyes, how, growing up, he'd never thought Remus would find a girl and not mess it up. Remus met her eye and said not to count him out, that just because he hadn't messed it up _yet, _it didn't mean he wasn't going to, sooner or later.

Tonks laughed, and said that if she could put up with his criminal friends and the fact that he thought fish finger sandwiches were an adequate dinner, she could put up with anything. He laughed too, opened his mouth to say something –

And then Snape's head appeared in the fireplace, and everything changed.

They all leapt up –

Tonks started at the flurry of activity all around her –

This was it, wasn't it, she thought – this was _tonight_ – this was what she'd lived through earlier, and whatever had happened after this, it wasn't good.

Tonks wanted to say something, to tell them not to go – she shouted at them to stop – but they couldn't hear her.

The scene was awful. Where there had been casual ribbing, now there was tension, fraught glances, raised voices where there had been laughter as they argued about Patronuses and who to send them to, formulated a plan –

She tried again and again to make them hear her, darted between them, waving her arms, telling them that they mustn't –

But they couldn't see her, dashed right through her, and launched themselves away into the night.

The Ministry sprang up before her, and dread settled in Tonks' stomach like an icy fist.

This was it, wasn't it? This was where it had happened, whatever it was that had made her cold, and achy, and plunged her into darkness –

Sirius' eyes were alive – more alive than she'd ever seen them in anything other than photographs – and they thought only of Harry, of finding him.

Kingsley and Mad-Eye were there, summoned by Patronus –

Remus thought impressively quickly, Conjured some kind of locator spell, and they all followed –

Dark corridors were dashed through, doors fell beneath spells, and then they were there, in the chamber. She'd been here before, with Mad-Eye, and that veil had always given her the creeps – but she hadn't had time to think about it. She counted the Death Eaters – nothing they couldn't handle, she thought, if Sirius and Remus were anything like as good at this as she'd been lead to believe –

Malfoy raised his wand, and she shot a spell at him as she dashed forward, caught him on the shoulder, tearing his sleeve, much to his visible annoyance. Sirius darted towards Harry, firing spells so fast Tonks couldn't tell what they were, and Remus was off down the stone steps, taking two at a time. With every fibre she longed for them to be all right.

Malfoy shot a spell back at her – someone else was firing at her, too – Bellatrix – and after that, there wasn't any time for actual thinking – it was just spells, instinct, furious bolts of light – red, green, purple –

Tonks fought hard – she'd always been good at duelling – but Bellatrix laughed at her efforts, and more than anything Tonks wanted to wipe that maddeningly superior look off her face, to put her back in prison where she belonged –

And then there was nothing.

She was back to fog and darkness.

Tonks waited. She expected another memory to come along in a minute – them all sitting at Grimmauld, talking over the spells they'd used, laughing about near misses –

But nothing came.

It dawned on Tonks slowly that duelling with Bellatrix was the last thing she remembered.

There'd been a flash of light, she thought, and then –

Location, situation, status.

She was cold, it was dark, and she couldn't quite breathe –

Oh well done, Tonks thought, you've really gone and done it this time.

You're dead.

It should have been a disturbing idea, probably, she thought, but it all made sense – the darkness, the cold, the ache in her chest that felt all too much like spell damage – and hadn't she just kind of seen her life flash before her eyes?

"_Rennervate_!"

The word pierced her thoughts, and this time, the word felt closer, somehow, although, insistent as the voice was, it still wasn't the right one, the one she wanted to hear.

"Damn it, Tonks!"

She saw a flash of something, too quickly to make out what it was, and then a spell, a jolt, passed through her, and this time, she felt it take hold.

A frosty feeling spread through her chest, and she pictured her cells becoming crystallised and sprawling into icy fingers. Colours flashed before her eyes – pink, blue, white – their shapes were indistinct, yet sharp-edged, like she'd just forgotten what they were supposed to be –

And then she felt it, warmth where there had been cold, a tingle where her hand should be.

Someone squeezed –

Someone was holding her hand.

Tonks couldn't quite fathom it, but it seemed a marvellous thought that someone had her fingers in theirs.

She tried to focus. That was important, she knew it was –

And then there was something else. Someone was saying her name urgently, and that was it, she thought, the voice she'd wanted to hear.

Another spell hit her square in the chest, and this time, her eyes snapped open.

For a second, there was just more pink, more white, more blue, and then some kind of yellow flash – and then there was a ceiling – stone – and in front of that, brown eyes, set in concern, floated in and out of focus.

Kingsley.

"She's back."

Mad-Eye's non-magical eye fixed on her face, a twisted approximation of a smile on his lips.

"Looks like."

Tonks glanced between them for a second, blinking furiously to try and clear the fog, and then the face that she really wanted to see formed out of what had been random shapes, and soft grey eyes peered down at her. "Remus?"

Her voice was more of a croak than anything, and she thought she'd missed the beginning and end off the word, but he smiled slightly as she said it, so she thought it probably didn't matter.

Remus raised her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and gazed down at her. "You scared me for a moment, there," he said.

Tonks tried to smile, to say something clever, but her head – her whole chest – throbbed, and she raised a shaking hand to her forehead to assess the damage, shutting her eyes briefly in a wince as she found a lump already forming on her temple.

"Are you all right?" Remus said quietly, and it was that, the quietness of his voice, the fact that she could hear it more than anything, that highlighted that the room was almost silent. There were no more spells, no more frantic shouts, just the odd flutter of that curtain behind them.

The battle was over, she thought.

Had they won?

She tried to look out into the room to see, but it was all so very blurry, and so she focused a little closer, hoping the rest of the room would fall into line in a moment.

Remus looked fine – her heart leapt at the thought – but Mad-Eye seemed to be bleeding, and Kingsley had turned away and was tutting at something she couldn't see, his face rather pained. But the fact that they were all crouched around her and not fighting for their lives suggested that they _had_ won, didn't it, she thought.

Remus' fingers clutched at hers almost painfully, and she met his eye and tried to smile, unable to really feel if her efforts had worked or not. He smiled back, although there was something rather sad about it, as if he was pleased she was awake, but something else tugged at him too –

She propped herself up on her elbow, gasping at the pain in her chest. "What – what happened?"

"Bellatrix hit you with a spell and knocked you out," Remus said, his hand resting on her shoulder. "You fell quite a way. We weren't sure – " He trailed off, smiled a little more widely, relief evident in his expression, and then added, "can you stand?"

Tonks nodded, even though it made her brain feel a little loose inside her head, and she shifted, experimentally trying her balance, testing where the pain sat and how bad it was.

Location, situation, status, she thought. In the Department of Mysteries, on my arse, hurt like hell.

Remus hooked his arm under hers, wrapped it around her, and helped her ease herself to her feet. She swayed a little on the spot, and Remus caught her shoulders, righting her and holding her steady as she tried to blink away the stars in front of her eyes.

Whatever Bellatrix had hit her with, she thought, it was a good spell.

"All right, lass?"

Tonks turned towards Mad-Eye, who batted away Kingsley's offer of first aid with his hand, and attempted a smile. "Fine," she said, even though, in all honesty, she felt anything but.

The room span a little, and the ache in her chest throbbed like an open wound, even though she knew it wasn't, and her head felt about twice its normal size, but there was something else, some nagging curiosity she needed to satisfy.

She swallowed, and glanced about the chamber, realising for the first time what had felt off, wrong, about the scene she'd glimpsed between the others' crouched forms. The Death Eaters were bound and immobile in the middle of the room, and a boy was sitting on the steps, pale and forlorn-looking, fiddling with his jumper as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

Ostensibly, all was well, but there had been more of them, hadn't there? Where was Bellatrix? Where was Harry? Sirius?

"What – where is everyone?"

Tonks sought Remus' eyes, and he met them momentarily, before glancing away again. "Harry went after Bellatrix," he said. "Dumbledore followed him – he'll be ok."

"Right," Tonks said, the word feeling rather numb and hollow, although she didn't really know why.

Remus shifted in front of her, taking her by the shoulders to help keep her upright, his gaze roving her face. "Tonks," he said, "I'm sorry to ask this – I know you're hurt, but – we need to get the children out of here before the Ministry people arrive." Tonks glanced towards the pale-faced boy, and nodded. "Neville's going to take us to the others," he said, meeting Mad-Eye's gaze questioningly, "and then we're going to take them back to Hogwarts."

Mad-Eye nodded, and Tonks tried a smile of agreement. It'd help, she thought, to have something specific to focus on –

But then –

Remus hadn't really answered the question, had he?

"Where's Sirius?"

Remus' gaze flickered to the veil, and the words she'd just said thudded in Tonks' veins. He closed his eyes for a second, his face crumbling a little, and Tonks' stomach recoiled as if she'd been hit by another spell.

_No._

The word reverberated around her head, louder and louder because he couldn't be –

Remus continued to speak, words about duelling with Bellatrix, Sirius being gone, that being why Harry had raced off, but Tonks could barely hear them over the cacophony in her own head, the voice that screamed _no_ as if it were the only word that existed.

He couldn't be, he _couldn't_ be –

Anger blazed, white-hot in her chest, and surged through her –

And then Remus' hands were on her face, turning it towards his.

His gaze was unsteady, but his expression was set in some harder version of the one he normally wore, and her breath caught in her chest at how steely he looked, how unfamiliar. He must have realised, because then his expression softened a little, and he scuffed her cheek with his thumb, as gently as he ever had. "Later," he said, his voice almost pleading. "We need you. We need to get Neville and the others to safety. Do you understand?"

Tonks nodded, although she wasn't sure she really did at all. Her brain could process what he was saying, what he wanted her to do, that he wanted her not to descend any further into thinking about Sirius, what had happened, that she couldn't fall apart because there were things to do and there wasn't time –

She understood that grief and tears and the desire to scream needed stowing –

But it seemed so callous, somehow, and she wasn't sure she even could –

"Later," Remus said quietly, and this time when she met his eye, she saw the desperation inside him, that it was a plea to himself as much as to her.

Tonks nodded quickly, tensing her jaw against a surge of emotion for Remus as well as Sirius, trying to bite it back, stop it showing on her face.

"What's the plan?" she said, surprised at how sure and unshaken her voice was, especially as Remus' hands drifted away from her face and she swayed once more on the spot. "Side-along them?" she said. "Send a Patronus ahead to Hagrid so he can let us in?"

Remus shook his head. "Portkey," he said, patting his pockets, "direct to the hospital wing. Hermione may be badly hurt – she'll need help, by the sounds of it. Alastor? I'm not sure I have anything suitable."

Mad-Eye shook his head, but Kingsley stepped forward and ripped a piece off the sleeve of his already torn robes, and handed it to Remus. "Try this," he said, and Remus pointed his wand at the length of fabric, muttering '_Portus_', and making the material glow faintly blue. "We'll need a story," Kingsley said. "I suggest I stay here and wait for Fudge and his lot, tell them some version of the truth that won't get us both sacked and the rest of you hurled in Azkaban – shouldn't be too tricky. I'll let you know."

Remus smiled his thanks at Kingsley, and beckoned to the boy he'd referred to as Neville. "Time to go, Neville," he said, and the boy scrambled unsteadily to his feet and came over, his forehead etched into a deep, concerned frown.

"Will Harry be all right without us?" he said as he approached.

Remus met Tonks' eye for a fleeting moment, his brow just tensing in a tiny grimace of uncertainty, and then he looked back at Neville and smiled in reassurance. "We'll find the others, shall we?" he said. "Let's get you out of here."

They gathered the children, assessed their injuries as best they could in the few seconds they had, offered platitudes and words of comfort, reassurance about Harry, and before Tonks knew what was happening, they were twisting away and landing awkwardly in the hospital wing.

Ginny staggered, wincing, on her ankle, and Madam Pomfrey raced in, startled by the commotion. Remus told her, briefly, what had happened, and she fussed and tutted and assessed, quickly turning her attention to Hermione, who was cradled against Mad-Eye's chest.

There was frantic conversation – the allocation of beds, Mad-Eye and Remus offering information about who had been hit by what and who they thought was in direst need of attention, but Tonks felt rather disconnected from it all, unable to help because she'd been unconscious when everything happened.

She took in the children around her, looking from pale, frightened face, to pale, frightened face. Hermione was white and limp-looking on the bed, making the sheets look almost tanned in comparison, and Madam Pomfrey ran to her supply cupboard for some kind of potion, muttering to herself about stupid Gryffindor courage and how dare grown-ups fire these kinds of spells at _children_ –

The girl with blonde hair really didn't look well at all. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, her lips taut as she grimaced, and the boy called Neville hovered at her bedside, shooting furtive glances at Mad-Eye and Remus as if desperate to ask if she'd be all right, or for help, yet afraid to do so at the same time.

Remus was at Ginny's bedside, looking at her ankle, even though she protested she was fine and other people needed his help more – and next to them, Ron laughed manically, rubbing at a sore on his arm.

Tonks sank against the wall, unable to believe that any of it was really happening.

She paused, wondering. She _had_ woken up, hadn't she? This wasn't some nightmare, some twisted vision she was seeing because she'd banged her head?

She pinched herself on the arm, but the pain felt all too real, and so she swallowed, trying to focus on the logical details of the situation to give her mind something to do. It was another of Mad-Eye's tricks – _keep thinking, girl, keeps you alive_.

The portkey, she thought, she should think about that. Remus must have some kind of standing arrangement with Dumbledore for a portkey he had created to work – did all the higher ranking members of the Order have that, she wondered? Or just him? And why?

He hadn't used one at Christmas – was the arrangement just for emergencies? Was it something new?

She wondered next what story Kingsley would concoct for the Minister. He was a master at it, plausible lies to keep them all out of trouble, but even so it was going to take some serious thinking.

The momentary distraction was blissful, and then the idea of Sirius being gone seemed to float back in and settle around Tonks' throat, heavy and tight and demanding attention.

She couldn't ignore it – any of it. But it all felt so unreal –

And yet she knew it was anything but, which only made things worse.

Thoughts swelled inside her: Sirius was gone; Harry had run off presumably to avenge him; a handful of schoolchildren had raced to the Ministry of Magic to fight Voldemort and save a wanted criminal on his say-so because the people supposed to take charge of that kind of thing couldn't be trusted to do it right.

Tonks couldn't help it. The white-hot anger she'd felt before flared once more in her limbs as she thought that she didn't really like the world these children lived in, what they felt they'd had to do. She'd signed up for Auror training, worked her arse off, committed herself to the Order, even, to take all this on herself so they wouldn't grow up as she had, with parents who always opened the door cautiously.

She'd never imagined she'd find herself fighting side-by-side with schoolchildren, opposed to nearly everything her colleagues said. Something Mad-Eye had said when he'd recruited her for the Order drifted towards her and settled in her mind:_ Rules are only worth sticking to when they tell you to do what's right. A good Auror makes her own rules, doesn't give a rat's ass what the Minister says unless he happens, for once, not to be talking utter balls – or is offering her a pay rise._

At the time, she'd laughed, but now the thought just settled into a stone in her stomach. If the Ministry had only listened, would any of this have happened?

Remus met her eye and mouthed 'are you all right?' –

And Tonks nodded.

_Later_, she thought.

This wasn't the time to dwell on politics, or be angry, or to think about Sirius – especially not to think about him, because for all he'd annoyed her, driven her mad on occasion, he deserved more than half an angry thought.

Tonks went over to the blonde girl's bed, reassured Neville that she'd be fine, right as rain in a day or so, that she'd been hit with the same spell herself a couple of times and had always bounced right back –

Luna was her name, apparently, and Tonks smiled at the thought. She always found herself liking, for some reason, people with unusual names, and by the sound of it, this girl was quite the fighter.

Madam Pomfrey got to Luna eventually, fed her the right potions to make her sleep off the curse she'd been hit with. She insisted on treating Tonks, too, joking through a tight frown about how long it had been, how barely a month had gone by when she was at Hogwarts without Nymphadora Tonks gracing the hospital wing with her presence.

She gave Tonks a week's worth of strong painkilling potions, stuff for the bruising and cuts, and said that Mad-Eye had done a good job with the first aid and she was lucky to be alive –

And they bustled about, doing what they could.

At some point – she couldn't remember when – Tonks looked across the hospital wing at Remus, and wondered what one earth he was thinking. He must have been feeling what she was tenfold, and yet he just moved from bed to bed, asking Madam Pomfrey if there was anything else he could do.

She didn't know how he did it. Experience, perhaps? He'd lost so many people in the past, maybe he just knew what to do with the feelings, how to stow them, so he could do what was needed.

It wasn't a skill she particularly envied him, but she went over to where he was, told him she was making tea and asked if he wanted some, and as he replied with a sad, grateful smile, the word _later_ pounded in her head, and she thought that it couldn't come soon enough.

When later did come, it passed in a haze, exhaustion and grief catching up with them in equal measure, each making the other worse. They Apparated to her flat, and she collapsed against him, finally out of adrenaline and totally at a loss for words.

They clung to each other.

It seemed almost inconceivable that mere hours ago, they'd been sitting in Grimmauld with Sirius, talking about nothing – Merlin, she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye –

The only things that seemed real were Remus' arms around her, his breath hot and ragged on her neck.

Thoughts swirled through her head too fast for her to make sense of them.

She'd known, of course, signing up for the Order, that she'd more than likely risk her life, that others would risk theirs and not be lucky –

But she hadn't really realised how it would _feel_.

It felt like a wound, a gaping hole somewhere inside, the depth and breadth of which was utterly unfathomable.

She'd read the statistics from the first war, she'd seen for herself how utterly merciless the Death Eaters could be –

But she supposed she'd thought, illogical as it was, that her love would protect people, that those she cared for wouldn't be taken, because how could they be? They were too precious, too clever, too _necessary_ –

_Sirius_.

She hadn't expected that.

Even in his darkest days, raging around Grimmauld or slumped in the kitchen over a bottle of Firewhiskey, Sirius had always been so impossibly full of life that it seemed ridiculous that death had claimed him. It seemed too banal, almost, that someone like Sirius could just _die_.

Ordinary people died.

And Sirius Black had always been anything but ordinary.

She tried to say that, something to that effect, to Remus, but the words came out garbled against his shoulder, and he just hugged her tighter, whispering to her that it would be all right, even though his voice cracked and told a different story.

Tonks stood in the kitchen, peeling potatoes a bit less deftly than Molly did, dropping bits of skin all over the floor and firing them in odd directions.

It had been five days since Sirius had died, five days that felt simultaneously like the blink of an eye and an age.

Some details, she remembered vividly: the first morning, she'd woken up to find Remus in the kitchen, and he'd made poached eggs, exactly as she liked them, with the yolk all runny, and served them on slightly burnt toast; later, he'd collected his things, hers too, from Grimmauld because it wasn't safe to stay there any more, and he'd packed everything incredibly neatly, even folded her clothes.

She remembered the smell of his jumper when she'd collapsed against him, cold and fresh from Apparating them from Hogwarts. She remembered how he'd clutched her to him and stroked her hair, and made her feel – better, if only for a moment. She remembered the burn of Firewhiskey in her throat, how they'd raised their glasses with shaking hands.

Other details were fuzzier. There'd been music to face at the Ministry, even though Dumbledore had taken most of the blame and insisted that everything that had happened had happened on his orders, and though she remembered, in general, the look on people's faces when the rumour had gone round that You-Know-Who was definitely back, she couldn't remember the specifics, who she'd spoken to, what she'd told them, even how she'd filled her days.

Maybe it was the painkillers, she thought, but it seemed more likely that it was Sirius, that the bit of her brain which normally dealt with remembering things like conversations and what she did with her time was occupied thinking about him.

It still didn't feel entirely real, and yet she knew that the part of her that had raged with anger and disbelief had slipped away a little, and in its place was a dawning acceptance that he was gone.

She and Remus had talked about it a bit, what had happened, although it still felt too raw and Tonks couldn't seem to get out half the words she wanted to. She was sure Remus felt the same, because sometimes his gaze just drifted off into the middle distance, and his expression fell into a strange kind of shadow. She always asked if he was all right, but he'd just offer her a faint smile that said 'not really', and change the subject.

She thought being together helped, that was why she'd asked him to stay, and he'd been achingly concerned about her and how she was feeling, not letting her cook or tidy or do anything that might be considered even the mildest form of exertion – until now, when he'd conceded that since the Ministry healers had approved her for a return to active duty, she was probably up to making dinner.

That was the theory, anyway. Tonks frowned at the potato peelings she'd somehow managed to get stuck to the cupboard doors, as well as all over the floor and work surface, and wondered how it was that she made such a mess when Molly's fell into a neat little pile.

Lost in thought, she started a little as Remus crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. He chuckled a little at her surprise, then rested his chin on her shoulder and peered down at the ingredients she had assembled on the work surface in front of her. "What are you making?" he said.

"This thing my dad used to make," she said, gesturing to the half-filled oven dish and the pan of boiling water on the stove, into which she was now dropping the potatoes. "It's like a cottage pie, but you make it with corned beef. I thought it'd be – "

She stopped. _Comforting_, was what she'd thought it would be, although for some reason, she really didn't want to say the word out loud, because today had been better, and she didn't want to ruin it by bringing up the idea that they needed comfort, the thought of why. And it wasn't that either of them had forgotten, just – " – easy."

"Sounds good," Remus said.

Tonks hummed in agreement, squeezing his arms tighter around her and revelling in the warmth of his body, pressed against hers. He shifted closer, prickling her neck with his stubble as she dropped the last potato into the pan with a 'splosh', and murmuring next to her skin. "Thank you for letting me stay."

"What?" she said, turning a little to look at him over her shoulder. "You don't have to thank me – "

"I know I haven't been the ideal house guest," he said, smiling slightly ruefully, "moping about the place."

"Don't be daft," she said, quietly, sliding her hand over his on her hip, "I didn't ask you to stay for your song and dance routines."

He sniggered softly, hooking his thumb over hers. "Good," he said, "because I've always been a lamentable dancer."

Tonks laughed a little, even though it caused a sting in her chest, a reminder that fit for duty or not, she wasn't back to her old self entirely, and Remus smiled and released her, resting back against the doorframe. "Do you need a hand?" he said, gesturing to the work surface. "It looks like – "

Tonks didn't hear whatever it was that he said next, because completely unbidden, an image flitted through her mind, Sirius dancing on New Year's Eve, spinning Molly round the floor and dipping her so low her hair brushed the carpet. Her chest tightened –

Remus met her eye rather worriedly. "Are you all right?" he said, leaning forward just a little, and Tonks nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Just – you know."

Remus' mouth hitched into something of a grimace of understanding, and she smiled at him slightly uneasily by way of reply, willing herself not to give in to the tears she could feel prickling in her eyes. Remus inched forward, drawing her into a gentle hug, and she settled her cheek against his shirt, trying to focus on the way the buttons felt against her skin – worn and thin and hard – so the tears wouldn't form. She didn't even know why she –

Remus had lost so much more than she had, she hadn't even known Sirius that long –

But she missed him, and the thought that she'd never see him again –

As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Remus squeezed her tighter, and she closed her eyes for a moment, stilling herself as best she could, because the last thing he needed was for her to start crying in amongst the potato peelings when she was supposed to be making him something comforting for dinner. "Sorry," she muttered, and he kissed the side of her head gently, his hands rubbing up and down her back, then cradling her against his chest.

"It's all right," he said. "I quite fancied a hug myself."

She chuckled rather croakily against his shirt and then looked up to find him smiling kindly. "I find," he said, then swallowed, "I find keeping busy seems to help, so I suggest we get this pie made, tidy up a bit, and then maybe I'll let you beat me at chess." She nodded, and he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "If you're really lucky," he said, "I'll let you go and change into something low-cut and we'll play Scrabble. I've learnt a new word specially."

"Really?" she said. "What's that, then?"

"Coathy," he said. "It's to do with diseased sheep."

Tonks laughed into her fingers, and Remus gave her a final reassuring squeeze, and then moved away a little, meeting her eye as if to check she was really all right. When she nodded in answer to his unuttered question, he smiled a little, then frowned at the mess on the work surface. "What needs doing, then?" he said.

"I just need to boil the potatoes and then mash them and put them on the top."

"Does this mean I'm going to end up with potato in my hair?"

"I assure you I have everything under control," she said, affecting offence, and raising an eyebrow at him in admonishment.

"That's what you said last time," he muttered, looking away and sniggering slightly.

Tonks attempted a glare, but it was entirely half-hearted, and Remus peeled a sliver of potato skin off the front of the cupboard, frowning perplexedly and then meeting her eye with a questioning raise of his eyebrow. She couldn't help but laugh. "I haven't quite perfected the peeling charm," she said.

"Oh I'd say it worked a treat," Remus said, scooping up some more of the errant peelings and dropping them into the bin. "There's not a scrap left on the potatoes."

She smiled slightly, feeling a warm glow settle in her stomach at the thought of how wonderful a man he was to go out of his way to make _her_ feel better at a time like this, how glad she was, in spite of everything, to have found him, and as they moved about the kitchen, tidying, then mashing the potatoes, dolloping them onto the top of the pie she'd made, she thought that he'd been right. Keeping busy did seem to help.

As the pie cooked, they talked about her day at the Ministry, the ridiculous plans to send every wizarding household a leaflet about elementary home safety and personal defence, about an idea Remus had had to do something for Harry, and then they settled down on the floor with their backs to the sofa to eat.

Remus had nipped out for a bottle of wine while she'd been at work, and as he uncorked it and poured her a glass, she noted the deep notch in the bottom of the bottle, and smiled a little at the thought. The pie had turned out better than she'd hoped it would, and as comfort food went, it didn't do a bad job.

After they'd eaten, Remus shuffled closer, stroking her hair lightly with the tips of his fingers, and asked if she wanted him to find them something to listen to.

She nodded, and he flicked through a variety of programmes on the WWN, eventually settling on a show playing wizarding songwriters. It was quiet and inoffensive and probably just what they needed, and Remus even offered to keep his promise about the chess.

She was tempted to say yes, to enjoy the quiet comfort of food and wine and inoffensive music, but there had been something, some nagging question, that she'd wanted to ask, and Tonks thought that now might be as good a time as any.

She reached for her wine glass and cradled it against her knee, thinking of how they'd sat here to have one particularly difficult conversation before, and that asking this couldn't be any more awkward than asking what Remus did when he was a transformed under the light of the full moon. She met his eye, and smiled slightly, she hoped, in encouragement. "Will you tell me about him, one day?" she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "Sirius, I mean. It always seemed there was so much to know about him, and I barely got the chance."

Tonks watched Remus' face for any flicker of a negative reaction – the last thing she wanted to do was upset him – but none formed. "I would be delighted to tell you about him now," Remus said, the hint of a smile on his lips, "if you'd like me to."

"Are you sure?" she said, and he nodded.

"Although you'll forgive me if I leave out certain details which might cast me in an unfavourable light."

Tonks gave a soft snort of amusement and shuffled closer, resting her head on her hand and her elbow on the sofa. "What would you like to know?" he said quietly.

"Tell me a story about him," she said. "Anything you like."

Remus frowned in thought for a moment, his eyes drifting away towards the fireplace, and then he smiled, just a little, at whatever thought had occurred to him. "I expect," he said, "that you are well acquainted with Sirius' reputation for a, shall we say, great respect and liking for the opposite sex?"

"Mum always said he was a right charmer."

Remus laughed. "Yes," he said. "I expect she did. Well – " He broke off, smiled at the memory, and then met her eye, his gaze alive with barely concealed mirth. " – unlikely as it may sound, it wasn't always the case at all, and though I rather cornered the market in disasters with girls, he had his fair share of embarrassing moments, too."

"Really?"

Remus nodded. "When he was a young fourth year," he said, leaning in a little conspiratorially, "Sirius was utterly infatuated with a girl named Rosemary Swingler, who was widely regarded by most of the Gryffindor boys as the most beautiful girl Gryffindor had seen in decades."

"Most of?"

"There were a few exceptions," Remus said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, actually, just the two – James and me, because we both had our eyes on other people and were rather blind to her charms – but Rosemary was most teenage boys' idea of heaven. She always had someone to help her with her homework, to carry her books, to give up their seat for her in the common room – but Sirius didn't care about all that competition, or the fact that he was three years younger, and he set himself the task of conquering her heart."

Remus paused and toyed with her hair for a moment, meeting her eye when she looked up questioningly with a glint of unadulterated amusement. "Unfortunately for him," he said, "Rosemary couldn't have been less aware of his existence if he'd been utterly invisible."

Tonks laughed, and Remus smiled. "He tried everything," he said, rolling his eyes, voice lilting with his smile. "He bought her flowers and bewitched them to read her poems –"

"Poems?"

"Oh yes," Remus said. "He wrote them himself."

Tonks sniggered thinking how glad she was that she'd asked the question, and he continued. "When that didn't work, he tried ever more grand gestures," he said. "He sent an enchanted harp to her in Charms, where it serenaded her with her favourite song, he sent her a chorus of singing love letters, and once, he ordered her a giant slab of Honeyduke's chocolate made into a heart with both of their names written on it. And still she ignored him. He was furious."

"What did he do?"

"He planned a dawn raid on her dormitory so he could serenade her in person."

Tonks frowned. "But the girl's dormitories are protected," she said.

"Yes," Remus said, drawing the word out and adopting a mock-pained expression. "He did find that out."

Tonks laughed, and Remus ducked his head down, regarding her through his fringe. "He got up quite a bit of speed on his sprint through the common room before he mounted the stairs," he said, "so he made it nearly to the top before the staircase transformed and he slid all the way down on his chin. He was quite a mess when he reached the bottom."

Tonks' mouth dropped open in a gasp, and she covered it with her hand, breathing her amusement onto her fingers. "You may remember the small scar on his chin, about here..?" Remus said, indicating a spot just to the left of the point of his chin. "That's how he got it."

"He told me he got that duelling a dozen Dark wizards," Tonks said, grinning.

"I expect he did," Remus said. "A man hardly wants people to know he got his scars losing a battle of wits with a staircase."

Tonks grinned a little wider, then reached for her glass of wine and took a sip. "Did he ever get to go out with her?"

"Alas, no," Remus said. "She left Hogwarts that year as immune to his charms as she ever had been. I'm not sure he ever really got over it."

Tonks chuckled for a moment, then readjusted her position, shifting a little closer and resting her forehead against Remus' neck. For a second, she just breathed him in, his warmth, the way he always seemed to smell so perfectly Remus…. "I'm not sure he'd have thanked you for telling me that," she said, smiling up at him.

"I doubt he would have objected," Remus said, reaching up to scuff her cheek with his thumb, "to me telling you anything that made you smile like that again."

The breath Tonks had been about to take caught in her chest and fluttered there, trapped, for a moment. "He was no stranger to embarrassment," Remus continued, apparently unaware of the effect his words had, "and had no real fear of humiliation if he thought someone would get a good laugh out of his antics. That was one of the reasons he was such ridiculously good company."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry he's gone."

She winced at the hopelessly inadequate nature of her words, but Remus smiled. "Thank you," he said, reaching for his wine glass. "The world will certainly be a less interesting place without him."

He opened his mouth to say something else, and then closed it again, shaking his head. "I keep thinking," he said, glancing up at the ceiling, "that I should say something desperately profound, something that would really sum him up, do him justice, but – "

"It's not enough," she said. "There aren't the words."

She hadn't meant to finish his sentence, but he smiled, adorably regretfully, and nodded.

Tonks swallowed. There'd been something else she'd wanted to ask. She thought she'd wait, but now –

"When I was unconscious," she said, "I saw things."

Remus glanced up, his eyes questioning, but rather unsurprised, which just confirmed what she'd suspected. "You – what did you do to me?" she said quietly, smiling a little to let him know that it wasn't an accusation – whatever he'd done, she was very grateful, just curious as to what it might have been.

Remus closed his eyes briefly, sighed, a smile tugging at his lips as if it wasn't something he'd particularly intended to confess, and for a second she thought he wasn't going to answer. "It was a spell," he said, "and a highly dangerous and immensely illegal one at that."

"If it did what I think it did," Tonks said, "I'll probably forgo arresting you."

Remus met her gaze, pressing his lips together against a broader smile that she knew from the guarded mischief in his eyes was just waiting to break out. "What do you think it did?" he said.

"Saved my life."

Remus hummed, but didn't say anything, agree or disagree, just gazed up at the ceiling for a moment.

"Sirius got the idea from a book on Dark magic," he said. "There's a spell you can use to make people re-live painful memories to disorient and frighten them, and he thought if he could 'fix' it, change what people saw – " Remus swallowed, his eyes drifting back down to meet hers. "He did it for me," he said quietly, "in case I ever had a very bad full moon, injured myself so badly I might not make it. He thought there might be a point where the pain made me want to give up, and he wanted something my friends could use to show me a reason to live when they couldn't reach me in person. The way it works – the things you see – it shows you exactly what you need to give you the strength, the courage to fight and come back, if you can."

Tonks regarded him for a moment without having the faintest idea what to say.

That was it, wasn't it? That was exactly how it had felt. The things she'd seen –

She'd seen herself, preparing to fight whatever came, even though she was scared as hell, Sirius, offering her friendship, even when he wasn't in the mood, her gran making her insides glow with warm-hearted advice, and _them_, all the things she loved about Remus, all the hopes she had for what would come next.

That was what connected them. They were something to fight for, something to go back to.

Remus tentatively met her eye, and reached for her hand. "It's a very selfish spell," he said, shaking his head a little almost in disappointment with himself. "I wouldn't have used it," he continued, slipping his fingers between hers, "except that Mad-Eye had been trying to revive you for minutes, and – I couldn't stand to lose you both in one night."

"That was it?" Tonks said, squeezing his fingers. "You just let me see things that made me feel like fighting?"

"Memories are powerful things," he said, softly.

Tonks smiled, let out a soft breath of amusement that wasn't quite amusement at all. "Aren't they just," she said.

"You might have made it without it," Remus said, his fingers tightening on hers again momentarily, "but it wasn't a thing I was prepared to leave to chance."

Tonks sat for a moment, just feeling his fingers wound tightly around hers, trying to commit to memory exactly how _this_ felt, this mix of awe and gratitude and….

She wasn't even sure there was a word to adequately describe the feeling, but she wanted to commit it to memory all the more because of it, just in case she ever needed it again.

"Sirius used to tell me," she said, clearing her throat when her words came out hoarsely, "that he was a genius. I always thought he was exaggerating."

"Oh he was," Remus said, laughing. "He just thought that if he said it often enough, it might eventually stick."

Tonks reached for her wine glass, and raised it, meeting Remus' eye. "Maybe we should make a toast," she said, "to Sirius."

"I think he would have liked that."

Remus looked at her through his fringe, and lifted his glass. Tonks wondered what he'd say. There was so much he could choose to remember about Sirius – his humour, his fortitude, his devotion to Harry –

"To Sirius Black," Remus said. "_Undoubted_ genius, shameless flirt, drunken old dog – and one of the best friends a man could wish for."

Tonks clinked her glass against Remus', and smiled as she took a sip of her wine.

She couldn't help thinking that in spite of all the spectacular, brave and wonderful things Sirius had done, it was very fitting that it was for his friendship that he would be remembered.


	20. Just Another Morning

Tonks lay with her head on Remus' chest, listening to the steady pound of his heart. She thought it had just about returned to normal speed, although hers still felt a little quick, but it was likely that that was more to do with the way his fingers dallied on her neck, tracing slow patterns that always drove her crazy, than what they'd been doing a while ago.

She suppressed a grin at the thought, and trailed her fingers down his side.

Tonks liked having Remus live with her, even though the circumstances were very far from what she would have chosen. Sirius' death had been – well, the word 'tough' didn't really cover it, and it still felt too raw to think about in anything other than totally abstract terms. On one hand, she knew he was gone, that she'd never see his eyes light up with mischief or hear that bark-like laugh echo through a room again, but still, sometimes, she half-expected Remus to come in, throw his coat over the back of the chair and roll his eyes, launch into some tale or other of what Sirius had done to exasperate him this time.

She knew she'd never see him again, and at the same time, she didn't quite believe it.

If she'd watched him slip thorough the veil, would that have made a difference, she wondered? But then Remus had, and sometimes she still heard him use the present tense when he spoke about Sirius, then catch himself, smile ruefully and offer a correction.

They were both adjusting, she supposed, to the idea of a world without Sirius Black in it, a concept that still seemed a little shaky, because how could the world still turn without him to think himself at its centre?

She supposed it would just take time, that that was a cliché because it was true, and that eventually there'd only be stories about Sirius to indulge in and laugh over. They'd always be tinged with sorrow and regret, she thought, but maybe one day, those emotions wouldn't be quite as close to the surface as they were now.

At least they had each other, and the more Tonks thought about it, the more it seemed that that helped. She didn't claim to know what Remus had been going through, how loss upon loss heaped on her shoulders would feel – in fact, she had so little experience with grief that most of the time she barely knew what to say about it because everything sounded crass –

But at the same time, she knew that Remus appreciated her efforts, and having someone just to be with –

That was what she liked about Remus living with her. It was nice – more than nice – to have someone to come home to, to have someone she knew would just _be_ there, to have someone to wrap her arms around at the end of the day and snuggle up with on the sofa. It wasn't the kind of thing, the kind of life, she thought she'd crave, but….

She'd thought about it before, what it would be like to live with a bloke – and then, as they grew closer, more specifically, what it would be like to live with Remus. She'd wondered if they'd get tired of each other, or irritated by habits hitherto undisclosed, but so far they just seemed to _fit, _in a way she couldn't really seem to explain. He didn't seem to mind her annoying habits – in fact, he seemed to revel in the discovery that she never replaced the cap on the toothpaste because she thought it saved time and agreed that she was probably right, and in turn, she didn't mind that he left books strewn about the place when he got distracted, especially when she was the one doing the distracting.

That was the other thing she liked about having him in more or less permanent close proximity.

She grinned against his warm skin at the thought of how he'd met her at the door with a kiss that nearly knocked her off her feet, had murmured against her neck that he'd been thinking about her all day, and how that had lead to a trail of clothes through the flat and this, her cheek on his naked chest and pounding hearts at dinner time.

Things like that were very much more than nice.

Sometimes, she'd wake up in the middle of the night with his arms around her and his fingers ghosting across her skin, and every touch would feel so perfect she'd wonder if she was dreaming. They'd whisper to each other in the dark, and she'd feel as if there was nothing but lips on lips, fevered breath on skin, the sensations they caused in each other.

She closed her eyes and her insides shivered a little at the thought.

On nights like that, it was as if, for a while, they both dissolved entirely into each other, almost as if the boundaries between where she ended and he began blurred.

And it felt – she wasn't sure quite what the word for all of this – how they seemed to just slot together as if it had always been intended, how easy things seemed, how they'd effortlessly offered each other solace when in theory there should have been none – was. _Unbreakable_, she thought, was the only one that seemed to come close, and even that didn't do it entirely. But whatever it was, it felt unending and unerring, and she couldn't help but think of it as permanent.

Tonks knew she was getting ahead of herself.

She knew that Remus not minding her aversion to washing coffee mugs didn't really mean anything beyond that he had the odd slovenly tendency himself, but it was hard not to read too much into things when sometimes, in the dark, with stars in her eyes and her heart pounding, she thought she saw a world of possibilities, and him in each and every one.

She knew that this, all of it, was just what being in love was supposed to feel like, that perhaps it was grief, the desire to have something to cling to, talking. She knew that just because things _felt_ extraordinary it didn't mean that they were; but there seemed to be a large chunk of her brain that didn't really care for rational thought and wanted to get utterly carried away with itself.

She pressed her cheek further into Remus' chest, and his fingers traced gently over her shoulder, allowing her thoughts to wander back to the doorway, and the delicious memory of his lips on her throat, and how his hot, ragged breath had felt on her skin.

Remus was always – _different_ just before the full moon.

It was nothing she could specifically put a finger on, other than that he was _more,_ sexier, she supposed, in a way, a little more direct about what he wanted, a little more overt. Where there would normally be light-hearted flirtation and laughter, there'd be glances so intense they made her breath catch, and she really did barely have to look at him a certain way to have him hot and bothered.

It was – nice – and nice wasn't nearly the right word, but with his fingers in her hair and her brain barely working, she wasn't quite sure what the right one was. There was an intoxicating power in knowing exactly how much he wanted her, how sexy he thought she was, because she'd never really had that before. Other blokes had wanted sex, liked her enough to put up with her dropping chicken noodle soup in their laps and always being at work, but with Remus it always seemed more specific than that, that it was just her and no-one else would do.

Tonks supposed it was like he'd said when they'd first talked about it – Remus was just slightly more interested in girls, in her, before the moon than he was afterwards, when he was too knackered to be interested in much of anything. Although now she came to think about it, it wasn't just about sex, because he'd always been more affectionate in the week leading up to the moon, only until now, being around him so much more, she hadn't really spotted the correlation.

She wondered if it was actually the pull of the lunar cycle, some physiological thing utterly beyond his control, or if it was like Sirius had said, that he needed, _wanted_, to feel human in the run up, in preparation for not being. Perhaps, she thought, he needed the reassurance that simple contact offered, that there was comfort in a physical demonstration of how she felt about him, that being affectionate with those he cared about was his way of coping with what he had to face.

Whatever it was, though, she couldn't deny she liked it.

Tonks trailed her fingers down over his stomach, just stopping shy of her touch being light enough to tickle him, and glanced up. Remus had a rather far away expression, his eyes a little glazed and his lips slightly pursed in thought, and so she shifted to look at him properly, curious as to what might be the cause. "What are you thinking about?" she said quietly.

Remus' eyes swung to hers and the thoughtful expression disappeared, replaced by something altogether cheekier. "Honestly?" he said, and she nodded, stomach aflutter. "Dinner."

Remus sniggered slightly and looked away, a rather guilty smile playing on his lips, and Tonks propped herself up on his chest and regarded him rather indignantly. "_Dinner_?"

Remus laughed, and met her eye. "Yes," he said, and she dug her fingers into his side in a brief admonishing tickle until he writhed. "You said I could be honest," he said, his voice high in protest as he squirmed away from her fingers. He batted at one of her hands rather ineffectually, and then caught her wrists, dragging them onto his chest in an effort to stop her tickling him.

For a moment, she fought to free herself, and then, laughing, gave up and settled on his stomach, since she wasn't really sure she had the energy left to mount much of an attack anyway. Remus looked down at her rather sheepishly, and not a little apologetically. "I suppose I should have lied and said something more romantic," he said.

"Might have been an idea," she said, biting back a smile and trying to sound churlish, when in fact she felt anything but when he looked at her like that, "considering."

Remus released her hands, raising an eyebrow to tell her to keep her tickling fingers to herself, and shifted a little, sitting up on the pillows, his face set in amusement, the expectation of a grin playing on his lips. "Naturally," he said softly, meeting her gaze with sparklingly flirtatious eyes, "I was really thinking about what we just did, and the plane of exquisite, mind-blowing sensation you send me to every time you make love to me. The dinner thing was just a cover story to stop me spewing embarrassingly corny post-coital phrases."

Tonks laughed, her stomach tingling at his words even though she knew he was mostly joking, and he grinned. "Why?" he said. "What were you thinking about?"

Tonks bit her lip. She'd rather hoped he wouldn't ask, because it was so nice, lying here like this with him, even if his mind _had_ been on his stomach.

She considered a lie – something embarrassingly corny or something that would make the most of his mood, because what she _had_ been thinking about – well, it hardly passed muster as great pillow talk material.

And it wasn't as if they'd had the chance to talk about anything very light-hearted, recently. If they weren't talking about Sirius, or wondering how Harry was doing after their encounter with his relatives at King's Cross, they were talking about the Ministry, the changes she could feel in the air there, though no-one really said anything – at least, not to her. They'd talked, too, about the fact that there had been murmurs about Aurors needing to spread out from London, maybe some of them being stationed further North, nearer to Hogwarts when the new term came, and what it would mean for them if she was chosen – or chose – to go.

They'd been bogged down, as always, she thought, by the lives they were forced to lead, and it was so nice to put that on hold for a while sometimes, and just pretend they were young and in love and nothing else.

But they weren't, and the werewolf thing – well, it wasn't something she could avoid, was it?

And she had – well, all day she'd been thinking about the approaching full moon and what it would mean, and she'd come home with the specific intention of talking to him about it, maybe over dinner, in front of the fireplace, where they seemed to have their best conversations. But that was before –

Tonks frowned a little in thought, and Remus raised his eyebrows in gentle, intrigued, inquiry.

She thought about it for a moment, but off the top of her head she couldn't think of anything corny and post-coital enough to make Remus laugh and cover the pause. Sirius had always said, too, that when it came to things like this, actions spoke to Remus louder than words, and what better way to show him that she wasn't bothered by the impending moon than to bring it up at a time like this?

"I was thinking about the full moon," she said.

"Against the odds," Remus replied, raising an eyebrow, "yours is less romantic."

Half of his mouth quirked into a smile that seemed understanding rather than surprised, and if he was disappointed in her lack of pillow-talking finesse, he didn't show it. Tonks smiled a little too, sighing in amusement and biting her lip again, hoping she hadn't misjudged the situation, or him and how much he really wanted her to know. It was always so hard with Remus to tell if he really wanted to share things with her, or if he was just doing so out of politeness, or some sense of _should_ – and the one person she'd always relied on to fill in the blanks when it came to him was gone.

What would Sirius have said? She pictured him sitting at the kitchen table at Grimmauld with a glass of red wine in one hand, rocking back in his chair as he laughed and made some joke about whether she'd still be asking him for advice when she was 80. He'd probably have told her, she thought, that Remus wasn't really that complicated, and spelled it out for her in a way she could understand, a way that made total sense, a way that spoke of a lifetime of experience and memories.

Merlin, she missed him.

Tonks moved up the bed, gathering the duvet around her and settling at Remus' side. It was true enough that he wasn't particularly complicated, that maybe he just seemed that way sometimes because of the way he liked to try and protect people from the aspects of his life he believed weren't ideal. Whenever they _had_ talked about him being a werewolf, though, anything related to it, he'd always been as affable as Sirius had claimed he would be. There was just something about Sirius telling her beforehand that it'd be all right….

She rested her elbow on the pillow, her head on her hand so she could look Remus properly in the eye. "It's tomorrow, isn't it? The full moon?" she said, although she wasn't really asking because she didn't know the answer. She'd watched each day tick by on the calendar, wondering when – if – he'd say something about it.

"Hmm."

Remus frowned a little, the tiniest crease forming between his eyebrows, and he looked away towards the window, where the sun was just beginning to set. "It'll be strange," he said quietly, "being on my own again."

Tonks nodded, letting out a tiny, almost inaudible, sigh of relief, because really, that had been what she'd wanted to talk about. However big a hole Sirius had left in the Order, in her life – in Harry's even, what he'd been to Remus was –

Whenever she thought about it, she thought it wasn't so much a hole Sirius had left as a chasm. She'd only seen a snippet of what Sirius had meant to him, but even that was enough for her to know that he must be feeling the pull of this moon all the more acutely with the knowledge that Padfoot wouldn't be there to join him.

Tonks inched closer, drawing her knees up to her chest, and eventually Remus met her eye and continued. "I mean, I was alone for years, but – " He smiled tightly. " – having him back this past year – well, it's not going to be easy, getting used to him not being there again."

Tonks' stomach constricted at the thought. Whenever Remus talked about the full moon, she couldn't help thinking that it was the isolation of it, the thought that it was something he faced alone – in his parent's cellar, or in the Shrieking Shack, or even in his comfy office at Hogwarts – that bothered her the most. Maybe it was because she couldn't do anything about the rest – the moon would rise, and with it, he'd turn – there was nothing she or anyone else could do about that; but she could stop him having to face it alone, couldn't she?

That was what she'd been thinking about anyway, although thinking about it and knowing how to broach the subject were two entirely different things.

"Do you have somewhere?" she said, and Remus murmured some kind of affirmative, although didn't offer any other details. "I mean," she said, and the duvet rustled slightly as she moved closer, trying to master the thumping of her heart and wondering, vaguely, where the lump in her throat had suddenly sprung from, "you can stay here, if you want."

Remus met her eye with a rather puzzled expression, and Tonks swallowed, simultaneously proud of herself for forcing words that nearly broached the subject past the lump in her throat, and a bit annoyed that she hadn't been more direct about it.

Now or never, she thought.

"I – " This time, her voice caught in her throat entirely, and she cleared it, and yet the words she'd planned to say really didn't flow as they had in her head when she'd sat at her desk practicing them that afternoon.

When she didn't continue, Remus turned towards her, raising his eyebrows encouragingly, although his gaze was rather fraught, concerned, she thought, about what she was about to say. "I wondered," she said, trying to get the words out before she lost her nerve, "I wondered if it would help if I – if I was there."

The words seemed to sink down and sit between them, a hippogriff in the bed, and for a moment, Remus didn't react at all. She'd wondered – hoped – that he might have guessed, but judging by his slightly stunned silence, if he'd thought about it, evidently he hadn't expected this.

The crease between Remus' eyebrows deepened, and she feared he was going to say no outright – which she'd thought he very well might – and if he wanted to keep this private, she'd understand – "It's just – you always said that having company helped," she said, leaning in a little closer, "and – well, if you'd like me to, if it'd make it easier, then I'll stay with you."

Tonks smiled a little, relieved to have at least allowed the words out and persuaded them to form in a reasonably coherent manner, and then she bit her lip and watched his eyes for a reaction, although found them rather unreadable as they flickered around the room, and then back to her face. Her heart thundered as she waited, and eventually, Remus took a deep breath, letting it out as a long, slow sigh.

Tonks swallowed, fearing that she may have put her great big size six foot in it again – but then his lips formed into a tiny, though rather wistfully sad, smile, and his expression softened from the fraughtness that had marked it. He turned a little more squarely towards her, shaking his head as he raised his hand to her face, tracing the outline of her cheek with his fingertips. "I can't ask you to do that," he said.

"At the risk of being clichéd, Remus," she replied softly, "you didn't ask. I offered."

Remus smiled and glanced down, his fingers dropping from her face and taking her hand instead. He laced their fingers together on top of the duvet, smoothing his thumb over her fingers, and for some reason she couldn't quite fathom, the action made her heart positively thump against her ribcage. "And it's a lovely offer," he said, "really, it is."

He paused for a second, and Tonks knew he wasn't just going to say thanks and yes. His eyes were a mixture of something that looked a bit like awe, and something altogether less encouraging – trepidation, maybe? – and she couldn't quite make out which one it was that was holding him back.

She hadn't really expected him to say yes straight away, she didn't think – in fact, she'd thought that maybe they'd talk about it in the run up to this moon and plan for the next, because it really wasn't in his nature to accept an offer of help without a struggle. That much she'd gathered on her own, when after meetings, he'd never taken up her offer to help with the washing up, in a gesture that had nothing whatsoever to do with her fabled misfortune with teacups.

"But?" she said.

"But – " He said the word rather heavily, and then paused, seemingly having changed his mind about what he was going to say. "Company," he said, closing his eyes, "it always – I don't know. It always makes me feel more like me. It's a reminder that I'm not really what I turn into."

"Well that's a good thing, isn't it?"

Remus sighed, but it wasn't a happy sigh of acquiescence, more a weary sigh laced with something she couldn't quite place. "I'm not denying that it's nice," he said, opening his eyes and regarding her askance, "that I'd like not to be alone."

He smiled at her every inch as sheepishly as he had done a moment ago when he'd confessed to thinking about dinner, and she couldn't quite fathom why. If it _would_ help, if it was something he'd like, she couldn't work out why he wouldn't just say yes, or why the admission that he didn't want to be alone was the cause of such consternation. Unless –

"It wouldn't – " Tonks shifted closer. " – if you're worried that seeing you like that would change how I feel," she said, "it won't. I love you – and paws and claws won't change that."

Remus smiled slightly sadly, and glanced down at their twined fingers before meeting her eye again. "I'm not ashamed of what I am," he said. "I don't like it, particularly, but it's not that."

"Then what?"

The crease on his forehead was back again, and in his eyes was a glimmer of something that she hadn't seen for a long time, not, in fact, since the night he'd asked her out, when he'd appeared to be outlining his faults – as he saw them – against the wishes of his heart.

"I'm dangerous, Tonks."

Quiet as they were, the words sank through the air and sat heavily on her chest, because whatever else Tonks thought about him, that word just didn't seem to work when applied to Remus Lupin.

She knew what his natural instincts would be – but she trusted him not to give in to them. After all, this was man who'd described how his unique wolf perspective on things occasionally allowed him to find missing books beneath the sideboard, and if he was in control enough to make a note of that, he couldn't truly be a threat, could he?

"Remus, you're taking the potion, aren't you, so you're safe – "

"Saf_er_," Remus said quietly.

The word rang in her veins as if he'd shouted it.

Remus shook his head regretfully, although his fingers tightened on hers at the same time, which she couldn't help but find a rather incongruous combination. She wanted to leap in, to tell him that she'd thought about it all and she trusted him, but she stopped herself, because this wasn't something she wanted to persuade him to do. She waited for him to go on, and a minute or two passed, with only the vague call of some kind of bird outside to accompany it.

"With Sirius," he said, meeting her eye as if his words weren't coming easily at all, "it was different – I couldn't have hurt him much beyond scratches and bruises, even if I'd had the desire to. I haven't been around humans all that much and I – honestly, I don't know quite what would happen. I'm not sure we should risk finding out."

"I wasn't thinking I'd just saunter in and hope for the best," she said, and he frowned a little in thought and then met her eye, his gaze keen as if he was pleased she'd said that, as if that mattered, somehow. "I thought we could come up with a plan together," she said, not wanting to blow things now by saying the wrong thing. "You could tell me what I'd need to look out for, you know, signs that you were or weren't fully in control, and there are charms I can do – Auror stuff – that'd protect me long enough for me to get away if anything happened."

"I didn't mean to imply – I have every confidence in your abilities."

The frown Remus had been sporting faded slightly, and he smiled a little reluctantly, his gaze tracing patterns across her face. "It's – " Remus sighed. "I just – if anything happened to you – "

"I'm not trying to make some grand gesture," she said, "or prove something. I just thought that – well, if I can help, then I'd like to."

"I know – "

"I'm not stupid, Remus," she said. "I'm not saying that I don't think this needs serious thought, that I'll just chuck balls for you all night and tickle your tummy – " Remus sniggered a little, almost nervously, squeezing her fingers more tightly. " – I know it's not an entirely risk-free situation. But I do dangerous stuff every day – I weigh the risks and I do what I can to stay safe–_er_. "

She scuffed the back of his hand with her thumb, and he looked up at the ceiling, some deep emotion playing in his eyes, although she couldn't tell entirely what it was, just that whatever it was went right the way through him. "And if you're just being polite, if you really don't want me there, then that's fine," she said. "One of the reasons I haven't asked before is that I wondered if you wanted this to be private – but if you think me staying would help, then I will. I'd like to."

Remus sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, and Tonks watched him closely, wondering what on earth was going on inside. He'd saved her life, and to her it seemed inadequate that all she had to give him in return was an offer to keep him company in the hope of easing his burden by some tiny increment.

Slowly, Remus met her eye again. "I meant what I said before," he said. "It's a really wonderful offer."

Tonks nodded, her eyes fixed on a spot on the duvet, a loose thread she really couldn't remember seeing before. She'd offered, and he'd said no, and the lump in her throat said she wasn't entirely sure what to say next, but she was sure –

"It's immeasurably difficult," Remus said, and it took her rather by surprise that he was speaking at all, let alone in that soft, slightly hoarse way she adored, "seeing someone you care about – someone you love – in pain, knowing that there's nothing you can do. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, least of all you."

Tonks met his eye as steadily as she could with her heart thundering in her chest. Had he just said what she thought he had? Was that was all of this was about?

"I didn't ask you," she said carefully, softly, meeting his eye through her fringe, "if you thought it would be easy for me, Remus. I asked you if you thought it would help."

Remus closed his eyes, rested his head back against the headboard, and she watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed heavily. And yet somehow, she knew his resolve had wavered. Something Sirius had said drifted through her mind: _when he trusts you, he'll show you how much he hides._

At the time, she hadn't really had the faintest idea what he meant, but now she could see it a little more clearly, see how the defences Sirius had talked about were constructed. Remus had named a handful of concerns, but at the heart of them all was the same thing, and it wasn't concern that he was dangerous, or that seeing him that would change how she felt, or anything of the sort. It was concern for her. There'd been an admission in what he'd said, too. Yes, it hurt – and she'd always known it must, even though he'd never directly answered the question, and yes it would help if she was there – he just wasn't sure he could – or should – put her through it just to help him.

She bit her lip, wondering why it was that he valued her, not putting her through something potentially difficult, over easing his own pain – but he always did. Every time they'd talked about him being a werewolf, he'd always played it down, covered up how hard it actually was for him in order to make the information easier for her to bear.

When Tonks had talked to Sirius, and he'd told her stories about their time at Hogwarts and how Remus had never wanted to properly let on how much he suffered, she'd said that his attitude was either annoyingly bloody-minded or very brave, and she found herself once more torn between the two.

It was all very nice of him – chivalrous, even – to try and protect her from the reality of his situation, but if they were going to be together in as long-lasting a way as she thought she'd like to be, he needed to see that she didn't need that kind of protection, didn't he?

"Can I ask you something?" she said, and Remus opened his eyes, his gaze finding hers in an instant.

"Of course," he said. "Anything."

Tonks swallowed, wondering how, when she was starting to think of things like permanence, sometimes, he could look at her and set her stomach jumping as if she barely knew him at all. "If it was me," she said, "if something was going to happen to me, and you knew it wouldn't be easy for you, but that you being there would help, what would you do?"

Remus' eyelids flickered down, and she knew with that one, tiny gesture, that she'd made the point. "Whatever I could," he murmured, but the gesture had said it all.

"And you wouldn't care how hard it was for you," she said slowly, "because that's not the point."

Remus shook his head, and she inched closer, letting her hand drift up to his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "I don't know why," she said, and the lump that had recently vacated her throat was back with a vengeance, "you find it so hard to let people be worried about you – but I am." Remus half rolled his eyes in amusement, let out a tiny fluctuating snigger. "And I will be, whether I'm with you or pacing a hole in the carpet somewhere. It's completely up to you which one it is."

Remus nodded, looking up to meet her waiting gaze. He hesitated for a moment, and his eyes flickered with something, some struggle. She supposed he was – as always – weighing what he thought he should do against what he wanted, and she wished that she could tell him just to do the latter for once, to let other people take care of the potential consequences.

But it wasn't in him to do that, she didn't think, and irritating as it could be, she loved him for it, too.

"I would – " he said slowly, his forehead creased in a rather earnest frown, although she knew, somehow, what he was going to say. "I would appreciate the company – if you're sure." Tonks smiled her agreement, trying to contain the urge to throw her arms round his neck and hug him tight. "I meant it, though," he said, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. "I don't want to put you at risk – there are things you'll have to do – spells and the like – "

"Ok," she said. "I already looked some of them up – you know, in case."

The last of Remus frown fell away, and he smiled. "Oh," he said, chuckling slightly breathily. "So this wasn't so much a discussion as a forgone conclusion? I suppose you just dragged me to bed to make me more malleable."

Tonks raised an eyebrow at him in playful offence, although she was glad to see a glint of amusement back in his eye. "I don't remember being the one doing the dragging," she said, and he sniggered a little.

"No," he said. "I suppose that's a fair point."

For a second, they just looked at each other, something silent and fragile hanging between them that she didn't want to even breath and spoil, and then he let go of her hand. His fingers drifted up her arm, causing goosebumps to erupt in their wake, and when he met her eye, he made her breath catch in her chest. "Thank you," he said.

"For letting you drag me to bed?"

Remus laughed a little, but the intensity of his gaze didn't fade. "For offering," he said. "I'll confess I wasn't looking forward to it – I mean, more than usual."

"That's what I thought," she said. "That's why I – "

She trailed off into a vague shrug, the look in his eyes taking the words she'd been about to utter hostage, and she wondered what he was thinking, because he was taking her in as if he couldn't quite believe she existed, yet was achingly glad that she did. And it – that look – was dizzying.

After a moment, he took her face in his hands and drew her closer, pressing his lips to hers, and everything she thought she saw in his gaze was there in his touch, too.

Tonks closed her eyes and savoured. The warmth of his lips never failed to do interesting things to her insides, and the way he kissed, alternating short, sweet kisses with something altogether more languid and purposeful, always made her pulse race. He pulled away slowly, meeting her eye with some of his old flirtation and mischief. "It really won't be easy," he said. "The first time James saw me transform he was sick in a hedge."

Tonks laughed. "Really?" she said.

"He claimed, later, that his cottage pie had been off, but we all knew he was lying."

Tonks laughed harder into her hand, and Remus caught her chin and tilted her face up, smoothing her hair away from her eyes with the tips of his fingers. "I think maybe," he said, "we should avoid that part for now. It'll be enough for you – everything else – "

He glanced down, then back up again almost immediately. "I mean," he said, wincing a little as if unsure this was an admission he wanted to make, "I'm not sure I could cope with the thought of you seeing that. Not yet."

Remus offered her a rather uneasy smile, and so even though she was sure of her constitution, having seen Mad-Eye rinse his eye in a running stream on more than one occasion, she smiled in agreement. "Ok," she said, before giving in to the desire to kiss him again.

She dissolved against him, and as he kissed her back with that same soft intensity she'd always loved, the world stopped spinning for a moment, or shifted beneath her, or did something that it didn't do normally to mark the occasion. His lips drifted away, tracing intoxicating patterns down her neck, and she sighed in approval. "Good," he whispered, his breath hot but tickling her skin anyway, "because the memory of a stag being sick does rather stay with one."

Tonks caught his face, lifting it back to hers and grinning at him cheekily as she raised her eyebrows at him. "And you accused me of saying unromantic things in bed."

Remus laughed, then pulled her back to him and kissed her, his hands roaming up and down her spine and igniting her insides in their wake. Her fingers fastened in his hair, and had Remus' stomach not taken that particular moment to growl rather loudly, she thought it might well have gone on to be one of those times where the boundaries between them shifted and blurred, if not disappeared entirely.

As it was, she sniggered against his lips, and, laughing, he shifted back far enough to meet her eye and raise a brow in apology. "Well," he said, "I'd say that effectively ruined the moment."

Tonks wrapped her arms around him, and sniggered into his shoulder, resting her forehead against his collarbone for a second, and he placed one rather lingering kiss on her cheek, and then moved away, slipping out of bed entirely and looking around the room with a curious and slightly puzzled expression.

"What are you doing?" she said.

His eyes fastened on the carpet, and he reached for the trousers she seemed to remember getting him out of at the foot of the bed. He pulled them on, fastening his belt loosely, and Tonks couldn't resist tracing the contours of his body with her eyes, remembering how each and every bit felt beneath her fingers. "I thought," he said, "I'd make you dinner in bed."

"Oh?" she said, raising her eyebrows at him in surprise.

"Hmm."

"With my track record with cutlery," she said, "do you think that's entirely wise? I'm bad enough at the best of times – are you sure you want to add nudity to the equation?"

Remus murmured in thought, and then pursed his lips, nodding in quick and certain affirmation. "I think it's worth the risk," he said.

"Do you?"

"Really," he said, "it just comes down to primordial urges, a man's desire for food and sex – " He leant in and kissed her on the top of her head. " – or in this case, re-heated lasagne and you, and how they make him blind to anything else, including the possibility of being temporarily impaled on a fork or slightly singed on melted cheese."

Tonks laughed, settling back against the headboard and grinning. "You think of me as a primordial desire?" she said, voice lilting with amusement, and Remus looked away almost bashfully.

"Naturally," he said. He pressed his lips together for a moment in a gesture that, had she not have known him better, she'd have put down to embarrassment, and then met her eye again, his sparkling with undiluted flirtation, his eyebrows inching up rather suggestively. "So don't move."

Tonks grinned, and as Remus disappeared into the kitchen, she thought that actually, she rather liked the idea of being one of his primordial desires.

* * *

Tonks' heart pounded.

She'd been standing in the hall for minutes, the doorknob just in front of her, mocking her quietly about her inability to reach out and turn it.

She didn't know what was wrong with her.

They'd talked about it pretty much all night over re-heated lasagne and then again later, as they lay tangled in each other's limbs, and she knew every facet of what she was supposed to do, had the plan memorised perfectly. She'd been through it again and again as the minutes to sunset had ticked down, completely oblivious to the files she was flicking through and the small talk in the Auror office. The spells were no problem – nothing she wouldn't have expected, nothing she couldn't do without breaking a mental sweat, and so she had no idea why, at the very thought of reaching for the doorknob, her insides churned and her heart protested against her ribcage.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, but it didn't really help. She'd been in hairy situations before – but nothing like this.

Partly it was fear of the unknown – that much she'd worked out, but mostly she thought it was just that the person with whom she'd shared dinner – and more – in bed the night before was in a different form, and much as she'd accepted that as an _idea_, preparing to confront it as a reality was a whole new game with impossibly high stakes.

She'd always known Remus was a werewolf – he'd blurted it out the night they'd met, and then had looked positively stunned when she hadn't run away screaming, and since then it had just been something that existed as part of what they were. She'd asked about what he did on the night of the full moon, had pictured what he might look like even, trying to reconcile the images of slavering beasts she'd seen in books with the man who kissed her so gently he made her melt, but nothing had really prepared her for this, for him actually being on the other side of the door.

Tonks knew what she was doing, she knew that she did, and it wasn't that she thought anything would go wrong or that if something did she wouldn't be able to handle it. It was more that this was, well, important, because he was, and so it needed to go well. Better than well. It needed to go flawlessly.

She swallowed.

It wasn't going to go anything unless she reached out and took the bloody doorknob.

Normally, on a mission – which wasn't how she thought of this, but it was the best way she had to equate it with something – the worst that could happen was that she'd catch an unlucky spell and wind up in hospital for a while, but –

She didn't know quite how to explain it. She wasn't concerned about her safety, because she didn't truly believe that that was in question. Remus had told her about the incident when he'd taught at Hogwarts, and even given the choice of humans to attack, a whole school full of tasty morsels to chase down, he'd turned and fled for the forest – and that was without the full dosage of Wolfsbane. He'd be in control, she knew he would be, and that meant she was safe.

_Safer._

Her heart thudded as she remembered Remus' words. Maybe it was that keeping her fingers from being able to reach for the doorknob – but after a moment's thought, she decided that didn't ring entirely true either, because she had every faith in the magic he'd use to keep her safe, in him to master his instincts.

If she was honest, what kept her from going in was not the thought of Remus behind the door, but how she might react. Much as she'd protested it wouldn't, she was terrified that actually seeing him in this form would change how she felt, and how she felt was so precious, so wonderful, so far beyond anything she'd experience before, part of her didn't know why she was even risking it.

But if they were going to be together for as long as she'd started to hope they would be –

And he'd trusted her, hadn't he? Believed her when she'd said that paws and claws didn't matter – and she hadn't been lying, she'd meant it.

It was too late, she decided, to let herself be consumed by what ifs.

The metal of the doorknob was cool beneath her fingers.

She checked her watch.

It was time.

She reached for her wand.

It was a simple enough plan. Remus would cast boundary spells that she could pass through but he couldn't, and she could stay behind those, if she wanted to, or if the need arose. He'd reiterated what he'd said the first time she'd asked him about it, that in wolf form he was spectacularly boring, although the apprehension in his eyes had belied his words a little, and now she knew how he'd felt. All of this was all right in theory, but another matter altogether in practice. He'd just realised it sooner than she had.

Tonks checked her watch again.

She'd agreed to give him thirty minutes after moonrise to settle himself, and now she'd given him thirty-three, and the door still remained closed. She knew it wasn't going to get any easier –

Tonks bit her lip, repeating in her head the mantra she always kept handy for tricky situations: _you know what you're doing_.

She almost laughed at how simple it was, but Mad-Eye had always said that learning to trust yourself, to believe in what you could do if it came to it, was the hardest part of the job. At the time she'd scoffed, made some joke about ducking killing curses being the tricky part, surely, but now she wasn't so sure. Spells she could learn, faith in herself not to fall to pieces and use the damn things, not so much.

But she'd promised, hadn't she? She'd promised Remus she'd be there for him, that she wouldn't baulk because it might not be easier for her, and standing in the corridor with sweating palms and wobbly knees probably didn't count.

No time for what ifs.

She took a deep breath, let it out quickly, and turned the doorknob.

Tonks peered into the lounge. She hadn't been entirely sure what to expect, and had run through a hundred different scenarios in her head as she'd drifted off to sleep in Remus' arms the night before, with his breath on her shoulder. She'd wondered if he'd be waiting, sitting just beyond the door, or if he'd be curled up somewhere, or prowling the perimeter, checking out his new territory.

What she hadn't expected was for there to be a small forest where her lounge normally was.

The trees were densely packed and skinny, and underfoot, instead of carpet, there was grass, a vivid green, even in the darkness. She wondered if she should turn on the light, but the curtains were open, and she could see the moon through the trees, just peeking in through the window.

Did it know, she thought, the havoc it wreaked on the people who had no choice but to follow the whims of its cycle?

She shook her head to try and clear it, because it didn't really seem the right time for poetic musings about such things, but pushing that thought aside just made room for another, that Remus must never get to see the full moon with his own eyes. For some reason, it struck her as achingly sad, although she wasn't entirely sure why, because these days when she looked at the moon, it was nothing more than a symbol of something that made her insides ache for the man she loved.

She took a couple of steps into the room, closing the door behind her and checking the wards, the silencing spells Remus had said he'd put into place. He'd joked that he'd been caught out before by nosiness and that spontaneous howling tended to cause quite a stir among the Neighbourhood Watch, and Tonks had laughed, arguing that with her neighbours, a little howling would probably be dismissed as her trying out some kind of new wizarding World music.

The boundary line, the one Remus couldn't cross, flickered vaguely gold in the air, but Tonks ignored it and glanced through the trees. A little way in front of her there was a tree stump where she used to have a small bookcase, and the juxtaposition of her hearth, her fire, and then grass, trees, some kind of multi-coloured night-blooming flower, seemed so odd, but somehow beautiful, too.

In amongst all of her fractured thoughts about how this was going to go, where Remus was, how she'd feel when she saw him, all the worry and doubt that swirled like smoke inside her, Tonks felt unassailably like this had been the right decision. She didn't know how it was going to go, but it was hard to be too afraid of a man who had Conjured a wood in her sitting room. She smiled at the thought that even when he must have been feeling pretty damn ropey as the moon approached, Remus sure as hell could Conjure a beautiful scene.

She wondered if she should say something, call out to let him know she was here, although she wasn't entirely sure what she would say if she did. Should she call him Remus? Moony? Should she talk to him at all? Would he understand if she did? As the questions mounted, she realised there was so much she still didn't know. She'd asked him a myriad things but there was so much she'd forgotten, that hadn't occurred to her at the time.

For a second, she thought she should just say something about being home – but then, before she had the chance, close, she sensed movement, and in the next instant, eyes like fire appeared between two trunks, glinting even in the darkness.

Tonks' heart leapt in her chest.

Of course, she'd learnt all about werewolves at school. She knew how to distinguish a werewolf from an actual wolf, and quickly she recited the signs in her head – different snout, tufted tail, longer limbs – but it wasn't as if she was going to have to pick Remus out of a line up of ordinary wolves.

There'd been stuff on them in Auror training, too – defensive spells to hold one off long enough for the appropriate person from Control of Magical Creatures to be summoned, endless lectures about how to spot a werewolf in human form, which she'd known the second she met Remus were totally erroneous, and only applied to those werewolves who revelled in the darkness they could wreak, didn't fight against it, as he did.

But that was all theory.

Once, at school, she and Steph had snuck out and gone into the Forbidden Forrest after dark, not realising until they heard a howl that it was the night of the full moon. Hagrid had seen the lights from their wands and dragged them to see Dumbledore, and they'd earned a week's worth of baiting rat traps for the potions lab for their troubles – but that was as close as she'd ever been to a werewolf.

Until now.

Now, there was one staring at her through the trees.

Her breathing quickened.

_Werewolf_ was no longer and intangible concept, it was something with eyes, and presumably a whole load of other body parts that came attached, including claws and sharp teeth. For a second she froze, her grip on her wand tightening, and she wondered if she really could handle this, if it was really a good idea. Before she could check the impulse, her gaze darted back to the door, and for the briefest flash she wanted nothing more than to be outside in the corridor again.

But that wasn't why she'd come, to stand outside, was it? She'd come to help, hadn't she, and so what she wanted, what she felt, didn't matter. Wasn't that what she'd argued?

Her heart fluttered in admonishment for her momentary panic, and she glanced back at the trees, determined not to let her gaze waver again. The fire-coloured eyes moved, tilted a little to one side as if the wolf had cocked its head in inquiry. As she watched, it – he – _Remus_ – stepped forward, and moonlight glinted off his fur.

Tonks' breath caught in her chest.

He was – well, handsome, she thought, as wolves went.

His head was dipped a little and he regarded her from beneath what she would have thought was a caution-furrowed brow, and his haunches were up a little, his limbs long and lithe as he moved a tad closer.

She traced the line of his back – there was the tufted tail – then looked back at his face, and had she not have written it off as seeing things, reading expressions where there were none, she'd have thought that on the whole, he looked rather Remus-y, with his brown fur greying in places, and his eyes eager and guarded at the same time.

She supposed it wasn't that odd, really, that she thought she could make him out. Remus _was_ in there, although it still seemed a little unreal that the two things, man and wolf, were connected at all, let alone the same thing.

She recalled a conversation where Remus had said that Sirius had told him he was getting more Remus-like all the time when transformed, and she wondered if that could happen, that while those werewolves who lived on the fringes and gave in to their animal instincts grew pointed teeth and claws for fingernails, those who _didn't_ became more human on the night of the moon, especially under the influence of the potion.

The wolf – Remus – was still looking at her, and for want of something else to do, she cleared her throat. "Wotcher," she said.

The word resounded through the wood, and for a second she felt stupid for saying something, but Remus stepped a little closer, ducking his head in what she couldn't help thinking was a friendly gesture.

Remus had told her what to look out for, that if he wasn't properly in control he'd appear twitchy, that by the time she arrived, if all was well, he'd seem quite relaxed. Which he did. Cautious, maybe, but not twitchy.

It was going to be fine.

Tonks let out the breath she hadn't really realised she'd been holding, and tried to steady her heart, and once she had, it dawned on her that she had no idea – absolutely none – what to do next. She'd spent so long going over the plan, what she'd do if things went wrong, that it had never occurred to her to give a moment's thought to what she'd do if they didn't.

She relaxed her grip on her wand, letting her arm fall to her side, and in the absence of a plan, the only thought that occurred to her was to do exactly what she would do when she normally came home, perhaps minus the kissing.

"It's been a long day," she said, sinking down onto the grass. "Dawlish's got his knickers in a knot about some report he can't find, and we had a woman Floo in who swears You-Know-Who's a shape-shifter and is masquerading as the landlord in her local pub."

Tonks looked up, biting her lip nervously, wondering how this approach was working, but in all the lessons she'd had about werewolves, no-one had ever told her how to tell if one was amused.

Remus padded across the grass then sank down too, sitting underneath the boughs of the tree that was closest to the hearth and inclining his head a little towards her as if he was actually listening to what she was saying. She had no idea if he really was, if keeping his own mind meant keeping the ability to understand what she was saying, but she couldn't think what else to do, and so she continued. "I'll probably have to go and investigate," she said, "if you fancy a pint tomorrow you could tag along and we could have dinner there. Assuming she _is_ wrong, I mean, and he's not swapped his evil plan for a life selling crisps and real ale."

Tonks trailed off and met Remus' eye with something approaching vague apology for talking about something so stupid on what was, after all, a rather momentous occasion. Maybe this was why Sirius had always transformed – it was easier to interact when you both had paws rather than the power of speech. "Anyway," she said, "talking of dinner, I did bring something."

She rummaged in the bag at her feet, finally extracting a packet of cheese and pickle sandwiches and some chicken that she'd picked up while she was dallying on her way back from the Ministry, trying to take her mind off things. "Sirius said sometimes you're peckish afterwards, so…."

After a couple of hours, Tonks decided that Remus had been right. In wolf form, he was quite spectacularly dull.

He'd accepted a chicken leg, had gnawed on it enthusiastically while she chatted about her day and tore the crusts of her sandwiches so she could eat those first. It had felt weird to be talking about nothing in particular with a wolf, and yet surprisingly normal too, and although she'd missed Remus' usual quips, his eye rolls and his murmurs of amusement, it had been nowhere near as odd to be with him as she'd feared it might be.

He'd done exactly what he'd said he would – padded about a bit, sniffed things, and he'd even howled at a passing wood pigeon, which had given him a rather derisory look as it sailed past the window. But, dull as he was, predictable as his behaviour had been, she hadn't been able to take her eyes off him.

There was a lot to think about, she thought. Even though the evidence was sitting right in front of her, it still seemed so strange that this was really Remus in a different body – stranger still that she of all people had trouble accepting that people stayed the same inside while their outer selves changed.

She was curious about him, she supposed. Part of her wanted to see how he'd feel beneath her fingers, if his fur was rough and dense, if the power she could see in those limbs was palpable, but she didn't want to cross the line and check. For one thing, she couldn't help feeling it was a bit rude to go over and ruffle his fur as if he were a cocker spaniel. Werewolf or not, a man had his pride.

And he was, she reminded herself, still dangerous. Remus had been right about that. Maybe he wasn't at the moment, but she could see in his body the potential for it, and part of her thought that she shouldn't push her luck. At least not yet. Maybe one day, when they were more familiar with this whole weird arrangement.

Through the night, they settled into a vague rhythm. She'd talk when she had something to say, when some snippet of office gossip that she thought might amuse him occurred to her, and then he'd stop whatever he was doing and listen, and the rest of the time he moved through the trees, pausing to sniff things she was sure he'd already sniffed half a dozen times, looking up occasionally at the moon with those huge, yellow eyes.

At one point she'd offered him more chicken, and then laughed, thought of Valentine's Day and the story he'd told her about the origins of the festival, had joked with him – or at him, at least – that this was sacrificial chicken she'd brought to ward him off, and they'd shared a look that made her think he understood perfectly every word she was saying, though she had no idea whether or not that was the case. She'd ask him in the morning, she thought, if he could understand her and how much, and next time, she'd be better prepared – maybe she'd bring a book, or get a paper and read to him, if he thought he'd like that.

The whole thing had been rather unexpectedly peaceful, she thought, one more thing that should have been tricky and yet, her momentary panic at the initial sight of him aside, hadn't been. One more thing for her to read too much into.

With a vague yawn she didn't quite want to give into, Tonks checked her watch to find that the night was nearly over, that sunrise wasn't far away.

Maybe it wasn't so strange that things had been like this at all, she thought. Maybe Remus had Conjured this scene in particular for a reason, to keep himself occupied, to instil some kind of sense of tranquillity where in theory there should have been none. Maybe he'd even thought of Valentine's Day, as she had – but whatever it was, she marvelled a little at the contrast between how she felt now, and how she had when turning a doorknob had seemed like a task fraught with difficulty. She should have known that even in wolf form, Remus would find a way to make things easier for her, and she only hoped that she'd offered him some measure of that in return.

In spite of how dread at the thought of it had settled in her stomach as each moment inched them towards sunrise, eventually, it came.

Tonks hadn't needed a watch, really, to tell that it was approaching. Remus had gone from amiable sniffing and lying curled on the grass eyeing her snoozily, to pawing at the moss in anticipation of something, and much as she wanted him back in his own body, her chest ached at the thought of what would have to happen for her to have him back.

He threw her a look that she imagined told her to stay put, and then moved away to the cover of the trees so she couldn't see him, and sure as she thought she'd been of her constitution, she was glad that they'd agreed that seeing him transform would be too much.

'Immeasurably difficult' were the words he'd used, and idly she wondered how he knew. Somehow, she thought there must be more to it than the memory of a stag throwing up in a hedge, although she could well understand how that would be a rather unforgettable image.

Tonks looked out of the window, watched as the moon faded and the first light of dawn pricked the horizon, and somewhere behind her, Remus howled. She winced, trying not to picture what was happening to him, digging her fingernails into the palm of her hand as the howl turned into a garbled scream. She heard a slight thud – hesitated for just a moment, trying to think what to do, but she knew, just knew, it was over, and so she darted through the trees to find him. The wood he'd Conjured was small, and it only took a moment, but before her eyes fell on him, her heart beat a ferocious panicked rhythm as her brain shunned logic entirely and forgot that he'd done this dozens – hundreds – of times before.

But she hadn't, and she'd seen him afterwards, but never in the immediate aftermath, and she had no idea what to expect.

Remus was on the ground, curled in on himself, his fists balled and his eyes screwed shut, and she dashed to his side, skidding to a halt on her knees beside him. Every inch of him seemed tense, pained, and she laid a hand on his shoulder. His skin was clammy, and for a second she wondered if he was all right. Should she check? She knew spells to monitor vital signs –

But he stirred beneath her fingers, and slowly his eyes flickered open. He looked up at her, attempted what she thought was the beginning of a determined smile, and as she looked back, she was a little startled to see flecks of gold in his eyes that slowly faded after a moment.

She wondered what to say. She'd already used up a 'wotcher' and it didn't feel entirely appropriate anyway, but any inquiry about how he was felt unnecessary and cruel, almost, because obviously it wasn't good. She wondered what Remus would do for her in the same circumstances, what he'd like, and all of a sudden, what she should do – say – just fell into place.

She curled up next to him on the grass, smiling at him gently as his eyes fixed on hers. "If I kiss you," she said, pushing his fringe out of his eyes, "are you going to have full moon breath?"

Remus shivered at her touch, and when he laughed his teeth chattered a little. Tonks shifted closer, rubbed at his arm for a moment, and then reached for her wand and Summoned a blanket from the bedroom to cover him with. "I'll be – all right in a minute," he said, smiling as she smoothed the knitted purple fabric down over his shoulder.

She nodded, although she didn't know if he was just saying it or if it really was a temporary thing. She supposed it didn't matter. He needed her to believe that he'd be all right in a moment, and whether she was playing along with some lie or not, if it helped, she wouldn't deny him that by arguing that actually, what he'd just been through must have hurt like hell. "S'muscles," he said, swallowing heavily. "Protesting."

Tonks shifted even closer, pressing her body right up against his, and he lifted the blanket and draped it over her, too. She hadn't really thought about this part, either. She'd thought a werewolf's body would adapt to the changes, that maybe the rightness of being back in his own body would take the sting out of the physical side – and maybe it did, maybe this was the lesser of the two transformations.

All she really knew was that it all tied in with how he always seemed after the moon – stoic, but clearly knackered. She'd lost count of the number of times he'd claimed to be fine and then drifted off to sleep in her arms a moment later. What he'd told her, how afterwards he just felt used, as if he'd run a really long way, certainly seemed borne out by the tremors she could feel in his limbs.

For a moment they just lay with their arms around each other, and she listened to his breathing, taking reassurance in how steady, how normal, how like his usual breathing it sounded, to the extent that she could almost imagine they were in bed on any other morning, and not on a make-believe forest floor.

She took a deep breath, the smell of the moss and grass beneath her mingling with the scent of Remus' warming skin, and tried to pretend that it _was_ just another morning, that she hadn't been racked with worry about him as the moon set and he turned back again. And she knew he'd done this dozens – hundreds – of times before, that it was nothing he was unused to, and yet she was desperately glad to see the back of the moon for another month.

"You were scared," he said.

Tonks looked up to meet his eye, but there was no point in denying it. Besides, it didn't feel like an accusation, something he wanted disproved, anyway. "Of course I was," she said, smiling slightly. "You're a bloody _werewolf_, Remus."

Remus chuckled hoarsely, coughed a little and then pulled her closer, tucking her into his chest and resting his chin on her forehead. "You stayed anyway," he murmured, and she closed her eyes and nestled into him.

"I promised, didn't I?" she said, quietly.

She smoothed her fingers down over his back, checking, almost, that he was entirely as she remembered, and he relaxed a little beneath a touch, the trembling of his limbs subsiding as the minutes passed. She wondered if she should drag him to bed – there was probably a couple of hours left before she needed to go to work and she couldn't deny that sleep would be welcome, but something about this felt right, too, and she always had liked him surrounded by forest.

After a moment, she moved to try and dislodge a twig from her ribs, and over Remus' shoulder something caught her eye. It was a shimmering form, and as she looked, wondering if it was something he'd Conjured, some effect of the dawn light, the thing seemed to take form. It was a bird – but not quite, actually – a Patronus version, and by the looks of it, a phoenix.

"Remus?" she murmured, and he drew away a little, looking at her from underneath heavy, purple eyelids. "I don't think we're alone."

She indicated the bird with a slight incline of her head, and Remus glanced at where she was looking. "Dumbledore," he murmured, pulling her back to him and letting his eyes drift shut. "S'probably nothing."

* * *

** A/N: Thanks for reading, and for all your reviews. Anyone kind enough to tap away at their keyboard for this one gets dinner in bed with a fanfic Remus of their choice: Romantic Remus does something interesting with toast on a flower-strewn tray; Flirtatious Remus makes some fruit salad you can feed each other; and Sexy Remus makes you a full English, adding with a twinkle in his eye that you'll need to keep your strength up ;). **


	21. No Place Like Home

Tonks stood in the kitchen, staring at the note in her hands. She'd already read it half a dozen times, but she couldn't help skimming it again:

_Tonks,_

_Don't worry, have not been snatched by Death Eaters – have just gone home for a few days to think._

_See you soon,_

_Love,_

_Remus._

Remus had left her notes before – snippets about him having popped out, wishing her a nice day if he'd been out late and wouldn't see her before work, and so when she'd come home and found the place deserted and a scrap of parchment nestled on the counter next to the kettle, it had hardly piqued her concern, even though she'd thought he planned to be there.

The contents, however, was an entirely more disconcerting matter, and the cause, if she was honest, of a slightly accelerated heartbeat and a puzzled frown. She read the note again, hoping that there'd be some new discernable detail, something she'd missed or been mistaken about, something that would unwrinkle her forehead and reassure her that there was nothing to worry about when the sinking feeling in her stomach told her otherwise.

To _think_?

What did that mean? What did Remus have to think about that he couldn't think about here? She knew that sometimes she had the WWN on a little loud, but –

Her mind whirled through the possibilities, all the things Remus might conceivably want to think about. The first thought she alighted upon was that it was something to do with the night of the full moon – but she'd thought that had gone well – as well as could be expected – better, probably, and a whole day had passed, during which he'd seemed perfectly affable and as easy company as ever. He hadn't seemed at all like a man with things on his mind – in fact, he'd seemed rather contented, if anything.

Unless she'd been mistaken, of course. Her frown deepened at the thought, and Tonks went over it in her head, picturing every detail, forcing her racing mind to be logical and methodical. Start at the beginning, she thought.

The beginning. They'd fallen asleep on the forest floor – stayed there for an hour or so, and then she'd had to go to work. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, unless accidentally firing a memo into the back of Kingsley's head counted, and when she'd got home, Remus had been reading the newspaper on the sofa. They'd chatted about her day, and then he'd asked if that pub she'd mentioned still needed investigating, and it had, so they'd agreed to go together. As she'd suspected, there was nothing suspicious about the landlord beyond a rather worrying taste for prog rock on the jukebox, and they'd stayed there for dinner, surrounded by the least suspicious pub patrons Tonks thought she'd ever seen. Remus had ordered the cottage pie, she'd had the homemade vegetable lasagne, and they'd chatted about – well, nothing earth shattering, and then shared an apple pie for pudding. At around ten, Remus' eyelids had started to droop, and so even though he'd protested that he was fine, they'd gone home, with her joking that it was hardly proper pub etiquette to fall asleep in your Bishop's Finger, even if you had a very a valid excuse.

They were both pretty tired – beautifully Conjured or not, a makeshift forest floor was hardly a restful place to sleep, regardless of whether or not you'd turned into a werewolf, and so they'd climbed into bed, and within minutes, Remus had fallen asleep with her pulled tightly against him.

If he'd had something on his mind, Tonks thought, she'd have noticed it, wouldn't she? If he'd had something big to think about, would he have wanted to spend a perfectly ordinary evening in a pub, joking about whether they should read Dark tendencies into the landlord trying to stare down his patrons' tops and throwing dry roasted nuts into the air so he could catch them in his mouth?

And as for today –

She frowned, thinking. She'd got up as usual, groaning at her alarm and trying to be quiet so Remus could rest. She'd made herself some breakfast – toast – had made him some too and placed it under a warming charm with a mug of tea, and then had attempted to leave without waking him. She'd failed, of course, tripped over an errant shoe near the door and stumbled headlong into the wall – but even that wasn't especially out of the ordinary, and after a brief, sleepy, good morning/goodbye kiss, she'd Apparated to the Ministry as she did most mornings.

The only thing she knew that Remus had planned was to sift through the Muggle newspapers to try and pick out any potentially suspicious activity, see if there was a pattern to the locations, dates, etc., of unexplained events, and –

Tonks' heart stalled in her chest.

A meeting with Dumbledore.

The morning after the full moon, Remus had sent Dumbledore a Patronus in reply to his request for a meeting, saying he was tired and could it wait, and they'd scheduled something for that afternoon. Tonks checked her watch. The meeting had been at 2, and now it was after six. It wouldn't have run on for that long, she thought, and anyway, Remus had obviously been back here to leave her a note before he'd left again.

She swallowed. Whatever had happened at that meeting, that must be the cause of him needing to think, mustn't it? She paused, trying to work out if that was the logical conclusion or if she was just panicking, seeing connections where they didn't exist – but it did seem likely that whatever had happened with Dumbledore was the cause of Remus leaving her the note and going off to think.

Tonks' mind raced. What on earth had happened? Her heart thundered as keenly as it ever had when she'd faced Remus as a werewolf, and though she was trying her best to be rational, the only conclusion she could come to was that people rarely needed space to digest good news.

Be logical, she told herself. Think think think.

If it _was_ bad news –

She stopped herself, and her stomach cringed at the thought that formed. Aside from his mother, did he really have anyone left to hear bad news about? The worst that could happen to Remus already had, hadn't it, when Sirius had died? And all through that, he'd stayed here with her – seemingly, gladly.

Tonks bit her lip, thinking hard, trying to be unemotional as much as she could, to work through this logically and come to reasonable conclusions. It didn't really make sense that something would have happened to Mrs Lupin. Dumbledore wouldn't have put off breaking that news for a day, and someone would have let her know – word about these things tended to spread with a rapidity she found rather morbid, as if death was nothing more than gossip about who was sleeping with who, and enough people knew about her and Remus that someone would have told her if it was anything like that.

Think think think.

Tonks went back to the scrap of paper still clutched in her white-knuckled hand, her mind cascading through the possibilities. A mission? But why wouldn't he want to think about that here? They frequently talked about the things they'd be assigned. Something that had happened to someone else, an Order member, she wondered? But again, Dumbledore wouldn't have put that off, and why would he be the only one privy to what had happened? Unless it was something to do with Harry. Was he all right? But the Weasleys would be a more likely place to turn, wouldn't they, she thought, and something as big as that would have been the cause of flurries of activity, not cloak and dagger meetings with Remus.

She quickly thought through numerous options, discounting them one by one as she found holes in the theory. Fleetingly, she thought that maybe the note might not be what it seemed, and cast every spell she could think of on it to see if it was written in some code, if Remus had been taken under duress and had never made the meeting with Dumbledore at all.

But there was nothing, nothing but the words she could see.

Her heart thumped in her chest, and her mind leapt between conclusions, firing off ever more random ideas. Maybe she should Floo Dumbledore – or Moody – see if they'd heard anything – but that would start a panic and –

Tonks swallowed purposefully, trying to steady her yammering nerves. The Auror side of her brain told her that there was no cause for concern: Remus had been alive and well enough to write a note, and there was nothing in his penmanship to indicate distress or duress – and it was definitely his handwriting. She pictured someone else in her position, someone worried about a loved one in these exact same circumstances, a note on the counter and nothing more to go on than a nagging suspicion that all wasn't well. As an Auror, what would she be doing? She'd be telling them that it had only been a couple of hours, and that maybe the person concerned just wanted some time alone to clear their head –

After all, the note said as much, didn't it?

She knew the Auror side of her brain was right, but somehow the idea that Remus needed to clear his head wasn't a very comforting thought, even less so when she considered the fact that if _she_ needed to think something through, she'd turn to him, talk to him, ask his opinion, but evidently, whatever it was that he needed to think about, he didn't want her to be part of the process.

Tonks sighed. Logical as it was, it really wasn't a very helpful or comforting thought.

She leant against the wall, glancing out of the window and watching two pigeons fight it out on her neighbour's guttering for the best spot, trying to rein her thoughts in to some semblance of straight-thinking.

Remus had had a lot to deal with recently – losing Sirius hadn't been easy on him, and he'd been so wonderful about helping her when she was sad – maybe it was that. Maybe it had just caught up with him, and he didn't want to burden her with whatever he was thinking and feeling in case she got upset. That sounded like something he would do, didn't it? Maybe the full moon had brought it all back, and it_was _as simple as him just needing some fresh air, time to clear his head.

She pressed her lips together, chewing a little on the lower one. That made sense. She knew Sirius would leave a hole indefinitely in Remus' life, and she could see how the first moon without him might relight his grief –

But he'd seemed fine, hadn't he? Why would seeing Dumbledore change that?

There was the matter of Sirius' will, she thought. They'd talked about it at the last meeting, when they'd all crammed themselves into a room at the Hog's Head. Dumbledore had told them that Sirius had left everything to Harry, that he had a few things to check but that it might well work in their favour. Tonks had been a little surprised, shocked even, that Sirius hadn't left anything to Remus, and they'd talked about it afterwards in the bar, when a couple of people had stayed and toasted Sirius in what was apparently a well-rehearsed custom from the last war.

She'd asked him about it, if he was upset, but he'd just smiled and said of course not, that Sirius had given him more than gifts enough during his lifetime. She'd pressed it a little, asked him if he really hadn't thought Sirius would leave him anything, but Remus had just met her eye through his fringe and asked if she thought Sirius was in _his_ will. She'd been even more surprised at that, evidently so, and he'd chuckled and asked if she was more surprised that he was morbid enough to make a will or that he had anything to leave.

Tonks rolled her eyes, pressing her head against the cool plaster of the wall. She couldn't see what there was about any of that that he wouldn't want to think about here, even if he didn't want to talk about it.

Her eyes fell on the pile of books Remus had left stacked on the carpet next to the sofa, and then she turned and looked forlornly at the teapot and mugs, nestled together upside down on the draining board. In the bedroom, she knew his clothes were tucked in her drawers, his socks haphazardly balled and his jumpers – especially the one she and Sirius had bought him – neatly folded.

He was everywhere here.

She'd thought –

She closed her eyes. She'd thought a lot of things. Had she been the only one who'd started to think of this as a permanent arrangement, the only one who'd silently marvelled at how well they fitted together and what that must mean?

For a second, her stomach lurched at the idea that perhaps she really _had_ been getting ahead of herself, and maybe Remus hadn't enjoyed living with her as much as she'd thought he had. Maybe she _was_ the only one who'd read too much into them both liking to read different sections of the paper first, maybe he had no thoughts at all about the way their things looked strewn about the place and inseparable, hadn't had any remarkably sentimental thoughts about the sight of two mugs on the draining board instead of one. He'd seemed to like – love – being with her, but –

Where was he?

Tonks tapped her head lightly against the wall. What was it that he couldn't share with her? She couldn't quite work out what –

And then a rather more prosaic question hit her.

_Where_ was he?

With the most sickening thump of all, Tonks realised that for all she thought she knew him, for all he knew her and everything that had happened, she didn't actually have any idea where it was that Remus Lupin called home.

* * *

A day passed, and then another, and then another, until nearly a week had gone by and she still hadn't heard from him.

Tonks tried not to panic, tried telling herself all the things she'd say to relatives of missing people, people suspected taken by Death Eaters: no evidence that there's anything wrong, try to stay calm, probably nothing; sometimes people just need space, it'll work itself out, in a couple of days he'll come striding through the door and you'll laugh at how worried you were.

Platitudes had never sounded quite so hollow, though, even given that she knew she was lucky, that Remus had left of his own volition, hadn't been snatched, probably hadn't come to a sticky end. She wondered why that wasn't a more comforting thought. It wasn't that she wanted horrible things to happen to him, but at least those people knew they hadn't been abandoned willingly.

Tonks told herself not to be stupid, rolled her eyes at how needy she was being, and reminded herself again and again that if he wanted a couple of days alone it wasn't really that big a deal, but still her stomach churned with the idea that something was wrong. She couldn't help it. Her heart surged hopefully at every letter that swooped into the office in case it was from him, and every time she saw a flicker of something silver in her periphery, she couldn't help but long for it to be his Patronus.

She hadn't slept, not really, had tried to, but had ended up with one ear open all night, listening for the creak of the door as it opened, the pad of his feet on the carpet, and at every slight movement outside the window, she'd woken, looking over and checking for owls that didn't come.

She'd sent him a Patronus – nothing fancy, just a message that read, 'I got your note, but I'm a bit worried. Where are you?', but there'd been no reply, and she'd even Floo'd his mum, pretending it was a casual, friendly chat, when really she'd hoped to see Remus sitting at the table there, making jokes about her checking up on him, or for there to be some explanation of where he was in Mrs Lupin's conversation.

Nothing.

Tonks had tried to tell herself that no news was good news, but it really didn't seem like it, and she just hadn't been able to shake the feeling that something was desperately wrong, that there was something important going on that she didn't know about. Her chest felt constantly tight with the thought, the uncertainty, and with the sleep deprivation and the way things in the world seemed to be getting worse –

Well, all of that, she supposed, went some way to explaining what she was doing here, standing in the dry stone-walled car park of a small pub in Norfolk.

Tonks had thought long and hard about what to do, using both sides of her brain, the Auror side and the increasingly stricken girlfriend one. She'd wondered about going to see Dumbledore, but she didn't want to bother him in case it really _was_ nothing when he was so busy and mightn't have anything to tell her anyway.

She'd thought about coming clean with Mrs Lupin, but hadn't wanted to worry her (or, if she was honest, let on that she had no idea where her son actually lived), and then about asking some other members of the Order, people Remus knew from the first war, where he might be, odd as the question would have sounded. She'd wondered if Molly might know, but just the thought of all the questions that would open up – well, Tonks had thought it would be somewhere near as catastrophic as Pandora's box, only possibly with slightly more undrinkably sweet tea and hand wringing.

Moody had certainly been a candidate for someone to confide in, until Tonks had realised that he'd quickly jump to the worst possible conclusion and have them mounting a two-person attack on the nearest Death Eater stronghold by sunset. She hadn't had a lot of options, she thought, which went the rest of the way to explaining what she was doing in a pub car park, eying the name 'John Barrowman' on the plaque above the door and reading all about how he was licensed to sell intoxicating liquor for consumption on and off the premises.

When she'd been sitting at her desk at lunchtime making notes about Remus' known associates and friends, John had seemed like the ideal choice. He was close to Remus, she thought, someone he might potentially confide in, someone who knew him well enough certainly to tell her where he lived, if nothing else. Of course, now she was standing in the warm, pine-scented air outside The Poplars, the distance between the picnic table and the door seeming insurmountable, she wasn't nearly as convinced, and in fact wasn't sure it wasn't the worst idea she'd ever had. After all, he was a Muggle, and she had no idea how much he knew about their world, how vague she'd have to be or what kind of lies she might have to tell.

Her throat went a bit dry at the thought, completely arid as the question about how on earth she was supposed to explain how the person Remus called girlfriend had no idea where he called home formed.

Tonks glanced across the car park to the wall, the spot where Remus had kissed her under the stars back in January, and chastised herself for not asking more specific questions when she'd had the chance. He'd pointed out where he used to live – why on earth hadn't she had the presence of mind to ask when he'd moved and where the hell to? She'd had dozens – hundreds, perhaps, of opportunities to discover that very vital piece of information – the odd moment when he and Sirius had talked, laughed, about Remus' place and the antics they'd got up to there – why hadn't she even thought to ask which county it was in?

She sighed, irritated with herself. Some Auror. Seven months, more or less, they'd been together – how could she be missing such a fundamental piece of information? She pushed to the back of her mind the thought that she didn't know because Remus hadn't wanted her to, that he'd always wanted to keep something of himself back just in case, telling herself that nerves and lack of sleep were getting to her and that this really wasn't the time for insecurity and second-guessing.

Tonks glanced around the car park, then at the door. There were horseshoes nailed on the frame above, and with a dry huff of amusement she thought that at least she theoretically had luck on her side. She took a long, steadying breath, running through what she thought she'd say to John one last time. Keep it simple, don't say anything stupid.

She'd already taken a look through the window and the place was near deserted, save for a couple of white-haired men drinking cider in the corner. John was behind the bar wiping glasses, and she knew that as the evening wore on, opportunities to get him alone would be fewer and further between as the place filled up.

She glanced at the door handle. Now or never, nothing else for it, won't get any easier the longer you put it off and all that, she thought.

The bell above the door tinkled as she pushed it open, and John looked up. The beginnings of a smile crossed his ruddy face as he took her in and, thankfully, seemed to recognise her. When she closed the door behind her, however, his face fell a little, and he peered behind her, a puzzled frown on his brow, presumably expecting Remus to follow her in, surprised that he hadn't. "Wotcher," she offered, attempting a smile.

"Tonks, isn't it?" he said, squeezing himself out from behind the bar and tossing the red and white checked tea towel he'd been using for the glasses over his shoulder. "What brings you here? Can I get you a drink?"

Much as she would have liked a whiskey in her hand to steady her nerves, Tonks shook her head. "No thanks," she said, "I just wanted a quick word, actually."

She eyed the room almost unconsciously, checking that her initial observation had been correct and the two old men and their cider were the only visible occupants, and John seemed to get the message, laying his hand on her elbow and leading her to a small, round table in the corner of the room, as far away as possible from the other patrons. "What's up?" he said. "Nothing's happened, has it? To Remus?"

"No, nothing like that," she said, sliding down into a chair with a faint smile. "Sorry to drop in like this – "

"Nonsense," he said, "any friend – or – you know – of Remus' is always welcome here."

"Thanks," she said. "I didn't want to worry his mum, and I couldn't really think where else to go."

John raised his eyebrows in question, and Tonks swallowed. "It's just, he's kind of – well, disappeared," she said.

"Disappeared?"

"I was hoping," she said, "that you might be able to tell me where to find him."

John nodded slowly, the ridges on his brow forming into a furrow of concern, and he leant forward slightly, lowering his voice. "When you say disappeared," he said, "you don't mean – foul play? I know I'm not supposed to know anything about your world, but even here a man hears things and suspects – "

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "He left me a note, said he needed time to think, and I haven't seen or heard from him in days – " She rolled her eyes. " – I must sound like I'm worrying about nothing, but – it's been nearly a week and it's not like him."

John's jaw tightened a little and he swallowed, fingering his chin lightly with his chunky fingers. "How well do you know Remus?" he said quietly.

"Pretty well, I think," she said, although something about the question made her doubt it.

"Only," John said, and leant in closer, "see, you say it's not like him, but – well, it is, 'least in my experience."

Tonks swallowed, wondering what he meant, and gestured for John to go on. "I think the world of him," John said, "but he doesn't always do things as make a lot of sense."

"Right," Tonks said slowly.

"Me and his dad," he said, "we used to talk about it, how much he takes things on himself, doesn't like to share his troubles – worried his dad something rotten it did. He was always doing things like this, wandering off on his own for some reason or other – sometimes for half a day, and then when he got older, longer."

"So he's – he's done this before? Just taken off?"

John nodded. "Eighty-one," he said, "when his friends died – didn't see hide nor hair of him for weeks, and then he just showed up as if he was right as rain. And then when his dad passed away he did the same – felt guilty, I think."

"Guilty?" Tonks said. "Why on earth would he feel guilty?"

John frowned a little, glanced down at the table and studied his shovel-like hands as they rested there, toying with a beer mat, and Tonks couldn't help thinking he was annoyed with himself for having said too much. "What?" she said quietly.

"Long story, that," he said. "And I'm not sure it's my place – "

Tonks leant forward. "I don't mean to pry," she said, "or put you in an awkward position, but we've been living together and it's been going really well, so – I'm just worried about him. It'd be different if we'd had a fight or something, but – I just can't imagine what it is that's made him up and leave without talking to me, and if knowing what had made him do it before would help – "

She trailed off, and John took a long, rasping breath, slowly meeting her eye. "All right," he said, "but it's not a pretty story."

"Will I need a brandy?" she said, trying to lighten the mood, and John laughed.

"Might as well," he said. "Couldn't hurt."

John heaved himself out of his chair, and went over to the bar, returning a moment later with two curvy glasses half-filled with brandy. He settled them on the table in front of them, and Tonks cradled hers against her palm, distracting her racing mind with thoughts about how you were supposed to warm the liquid slightly before drinking it.

She wasn't sure if she felt better or worse about the idea that this was something Remus made a habit of, and she supposed she wouldn't until she could put this recent disappearing act into some kind of context. Maybe it _was_ to do with Sirius, she thought, if grief seemed to be a trigger for it – although she still couldn't fathom how seeing Dumbledore would play into that or why it had taken so long to hit him.

She looked up, meeting John's eye, and he leant in closer, so close that Tonks could see all the broken veins on his nose. "See, the thing with Remus' dad – he was a wonderful fella, but he did some things, things he shouldn't have and – you know about Remus? That he's a – well, that's he's – that there's something – he's – " John frowned, evidently searching for the word.

"A little unusual around the full moon?" Tonks said, lowering her voice and hoping she wasn't going to have to Obliviate John if that wasn't what he'd been hinting at. John nodded.

"Well, see, it all goes back to that, really," he said, "that night. As long as I live I'll never forget it."

"The night Remus was bitten?"

"No," John said. "Starts a way before that. You've heard of this fellow, Fenrir Greyback?"

Tonks nodded, leaning forward, wondering where on earth this was all leading. "Well," John said, "one night, me and Richard – Remus' dad – were walking back from here. We'd had a few – few too many, more than likely, decided to take a short-cut through the woods. In those days, before, there was no reason not to. I mean you hear the rumours – werewolves in the forest and the like, but we were grown men – we didn't believe in scary stories, didn't give any thought to the full moon. Not until that thing leapt out at us."

"Greyback?"

John shook his head. "His son," he said.

Tonks' eyebrows leapt up. She'd heard of Greyback – he was a living, breathing, legend, but she'd never heard any talk about him having a family. It seemed so incongruous with what he was that he'd actually be related to other people. The sinking feeling in her stomach was back and leaving her feeling more hollowed than ever. Although the details were impossibly elusive still, she was starting to have a sense that all of this – Remus' guilt, the idea of him needing to be alone to really think – all fitted together. She was sure of it, only she couldn't quite make sense of it just yet, had no idea what it all really meant, like she was only seeing the briefest impression of everything that was involved.

"We didn't know what it was," John continued, after a moment. "It was just this huge, snarling thing with teeth and claws, all happened so fast – it was dark, and we weren't exactly thinking our best, you know. Richard shoved me out of the way, shouted that I should run – he just reacted, shot some light at it and it fell back on the ground. There was this crack, like it had hit its head, but we didn't wait to find out, see what it was or if it was dead, just ran for it." He paused for a moment, exhaling slowly, and reached for his brandy, swirling the glass against his palm and then taking a sip. "We didn't know," he said. "We didn't know it was a person."

"He – he killed him? Remus' dad killed Greyback's son?"

John nodded, then swallowed heavily. "Two weeks later, Richard got a knock on the door," he said, leaning in conspiratorially. "It was that Greyback fellow, he told Richard what he'd done, that he knew it was him, called him a murderer. Richard was horrified – said he'd turn himself in and tried to explain it was self-defence – but this Greyback wouldn't listen, said he didn't care about him going to prison, being sorry, that that wasn't enough. Said he wanted Remus as a replacement."

"A replacement?"

"Said his pack – that was the word he used, not family – was one short, and that Remus should fill the gap, and if he didn't hand him over, he'd be sorry. Richard was – I'd never seen him scared of anything, but he was shaking like a leaf for days. This Greyback, he was all Old Testament, an eye for an eye, a son for a son, and Richard was torn – he wanted to do the right thing, own up to what he'd done, but he didn't want to leave Remus and Eleanor alone in case – "

He trailed off, and Tonks didn't know quite what to say to fill the gap either. She'd always imagined that Remus being bitten was an accident, almost, and this – she didn't even know if there was any word for it. "What happened?" she said.

"Months passed and nothing," he said. "Richard started to think it hadn't been anything, that it had been a heat of the moment thing and this Greyback hadn't really meant it. Then one night, the full moon came, and he was there. They tried to stop him, told Remus to run, but – there was nothing they could do."

Tonks took a sip of her brandy, although it didn't do anything to quell the queasiness in her stomach at the thought. "I think he – Greyback – thought that either Remus'd die and they'd be even like that, or Richard wouldn't want him after he was bitten, and he'd win either way."

"Yeah," Tonks said. "You hear stories about parents who can't take it when their child gets bitten. They buy all the stupid folklore and prejudice – "

"He's lucky to have found someone who thinks it's stupid."

Tonks smiled tightly, thinking that she wasn't sure luck had as much to do with it as Mad-Eye's stern words and the fact that she wasn't exactly run of the mill either, but it didn't seem the moment to argue the point.

She took a sip of her brandy, running all of this through her mind. There was something there, she thought, some connection, although every time she reached for it, it seemed to drift through her fingers like smoke. Remus had told her what had happened, more or less, said he couldn't remember much about it – and she could well understand why he wouldn't want to share the full story.

"You said when his dad died," she said, "Remus felt guilty."

"Aye," John said. "It always ate away at Richard, killing that boy and what that'd meant for Remus – always thought it was all his fault. They were two peas in a pod like that – Remus always felt guilty about his parents never having any money because they were looking for a cure, Richard always felt guilty that they had to look for one in the first place."

"That does sound like Remus," she said, letting out a long sigh.

"There's a lot of Eleanor in him too, of course – Richard was never really one for books and art and things like that, but him and his dad, in spite of everything, they made each other laugh something chronic."

"I can imagine."

"It was nice to see," John said, "after everything. I always admired Remus for not holding a grudge, even when he found out the truth."

Tonks nodded, because she had too. When they'd talked about it, Remus being a werewolf, she'd imagined how she'd have felt if it had been her. And she couldn't really say of course, not with any certainty, but she'd known she would have handled it with much less grace than he had, had pictured how she'd have railed against the world, looked for blame. She'd always marvelled a little at Remus' quiet acceptance, that if he was bitter or angry about it, he didn't let it show, didn't let it rub off on other people.

"What happened, then?" Tonks said, taking another sip of her brandy. "Why did he feel guilty when his dad died?"

"Oh well that's the thing," John said, smiling sadly. "The way he died…. Richard was out for a walk one night, and he encountered this thing – something that was dark and dangerous in a way he couldn't really explain to me. Said it made him relive his worst memories, made him feel trapped in them – and, well, with what had happened in the forest that night, what had happened to Remus, all the things he'd seen him go through – well, he had some pretty horrible memories."

Tonks sank back in her chair. He must mean a Dementor, mustn't he?

"He was never the same after that," John said wearily. "There was no talking to him – I tried, Remus did, Eleanor was beside herself – but he was lost, lost in himself, his guilt – not wallowing exactly, but as if he couldn't shake what he'd seen, as if he thought that what he felt about it was reality. I think in the end, he just couldn't take it anymore and he drifted away, like he'd just lost the will to live."

"And Remus felt guilty because so many of the memories were about him?"

"Something like that," John said, running a hand over his jaw, rubbing it absentmindedly. "He never spoke about it – not his way, really."

Tonks swallowed. She could barely hold all these details in her head at once, and differing emotions surged and bubbled in her chest. On the one hand, she ached for the thought of what Remus must have gone through, the thought of how much he'd lost in his life and that it was no real surprise that occasionally it got to him, was perhaps more surprising that it didn't happen more often. On the other hand was a prickle of something that was very nearly annoyance that he'd tried to handle so much on his own, the fact that he'd disappeared evidence that he thought he had to continue to do so.

"What did Remus do?" she said.

"He made it through the funeral," John said, "and then he just disappeared. Left his mum a note."

He sniffed with something that sounded a bit like amusement, but really wasn't, more resignation and wry appreciation for the echo in time than anything else. "Is it any help," he said, "if I say he always comes back eventually?"

Tonks' echoed John's wry sniff, shaking her head. "I don't know why he can't just – I don't know," she said, not really knowing where she was going with the thought. Hardly surprising, with everything that John had just said and the cacophony of ideas in her head, she thought. "One of his friends said that Remus seems to think that caring for him is an inconvenience, and, well, the more I get to know him, the more I think he's dead right."

"There's no malice in what he does," John said, "I just think he doesn't like to bother people, thinks they've got enough to contend with without him heaping his worries on them. He means well. It's probably not even occurred to him that you'd be worried."

"I know," Tonks murmured, glancing down at her drink. She'd thought that, that he hadn't worried her on purpose, but it was nice to hear it, and not for the first time, she felt a swirling mix of emotions about Remus twist in her chest, admiration for how selfless he could be, and an ache that he thought he had to be dancing and mingling. "Any idea where he'd go?" she said. "I mean, he said he was going home, but I don't really know where that is."

Tonks met John's eye tentatively, expecting questions about why she didn't, but to her immense relief, if John had them, he didn't articulate them. He just smiled mildly and drained his drink, setting the glass back neatly on the table. "Oh, well, I think I can help you out with that," he said. "Probably do him good not to be brooding about whatever it is, and if anything'll snap a man out of it, it's a pretty girl as wants to help."

Tonks smiled, and John gestured for her to drink up. She raised her glass and knocked back what remained of her brandy, wincing a little at how strong and sweet it was, trying not to hope that she wouldn't need the fortification. They exchanged a glance, then both got to their feet.

John made his way slowly to the bar, tossed his checked tea towel onto the counter and leant over the top. "I'm just nipping out for half an hour," he shouted down the bar. "Hold the fort, will you, Tony?"

Tony – whoever he was – murmured some kind of agreement from the small kitchen, and John gestured to the door. "S'not far," he said. "Surprised he hasn't shown you round himself. It's a nice place."

* * *

They stood on the other side of the hill to the pub, overlooking a little hamlet nestled in the fields beneath the line of the pine trees. The houses were scattered slightly, wild flower-strewn grass between them, brightly-coloured curtains hanging in the windows, and sheets blowing in the breeze on the washing lines.

Tonks wondered which one was Remus'. She'd never really given any thought to where he lived – to her, as it turned out, cost, and the houses were nice, had a cottage-like feel to them without being totally isolated. Was this what she'd have imagined for him if she'd given it some thought? "Which one is it?" she said, gesturing down at them.

"Oh, none of those," John said. He placed his hand lightly on her arm, indicating that she should turn, and pointed off across the fields to the middle distance. "Remus lives in the windmill."

Tonks' lips twitched, and she almost laughed, because _of course_ he did.

"Thought you could do one of those disappearing tricks of your own," John said, meeting her eye and offering her a conspiratorial half-wink, "save me old legs."

Tonks smiled, then did laugh a little, because the more she looked at the windmill, nestled in a field with scrappy but verdant hedges, the more it seemed to have Remus written all over it. "Thank you," she said, meeting John's eye.

"Don't mention it," he said. "Just – I don't know. Talk some sense into him."

Tonks nodded, but couldn't help letting her gaze fall to the grass beneath her feet, because she was rather unable to share John's faith that talking sense was on the cards when it came to her. Saying the right thing was hardly her speciality – in fact, if she had to choose, saying exactly the wrong thing was what she was very much more adept at. Her stomach gurgled with nerves and uncertainty, her mind not helping by throwing in questions about what on earth she planned to say.

"Well," John said, clapping his hands together, "I'd best be getting back. Tony's a great pie chef, but he can't pull a pint to save his life and those old codgers don't take too kindly to being cut off."

They exchanged a brief goodbye, and John ambled back the way they'd come, a good-natured sway in his step that seemed the very echo of the man himself. Tonks watched him go, almost wishing he'd volunteered to come with her, to help her muddle through whatever this thing with Remus was, but knowing that ultimately, it was up to her.

She gazed at the windmill. She was still none the wiser about what had driven Remus there, but if this was where he'd come, she couldn't avoid drawing the conclusion that it was most likely her he was hiding from specifically. She hadn't really thought about that until now, that it might be something to do with them that he needed to think about – things had been going so swimmingly it had never even occurred to her.

Tonks frowned in thought. She hadn't misinterpreted that, she didn't think. She might have occasionally allowed herself to drift off into daydreams about the future, but that hadn't blinded her to reality. Things hadn't been easy, what with Sirius and work and everything else that conspired to pull them in different directions, but she'd rather thought that they'd risen to the challenge. Everything about them recently had felt – well, solid and dependable, and a lot of things with more romantic phrasing she'd have applied were she not standing on a hillside in Norfolk debating why on earth her boyfriend had pulled a Houdini.

It didn't quite add up that they were the cause, she thought. He'd signed the note _love_, and how would Dumbledore come into play? She didn't think Dumbledore even knew about them, let alone would care, really, when he had so many other things to think about.

The sinking feeling in her stomach redoubled, and for a second she wondered about just going home, continuing to wait – like John had said, he always came back eventually.

But that was no way to live, was it? John was right – whatever it was, Remus brooding on his own about it wasn't the answer, and if they were ever going to have the kind of future she hoped for, the kind that demanded and deserved romantic phrasing, then Remus needed to realise she could be trusted, that she didn't mind if he needed someone to share things with, that she didn't think it an inconvenience to care about him because she did very much anyway and so it wasn't out of her way.

She sighed. She could go through the possibilities again, she thought, try and weave in everything John had told her and attempt to draw fresh conclusions, make a plan of what to say and how to handle things, but there was little point. She probably wouldn't get it right anyway, and her head was buzzing too loudly with thoughts to really sort through the morass. She supposed she'd never find out what was going on if she continued to stand on a hill in the early evening sunshine, and so she took a deep breath, checked the surrounding area for prying eyes, and then, finding none, Disapparated.

Up close, the windmill wasn't a particularly grand affair. It had the same ramshackle quality as the Burrow, as if it was held together entirely by magic and force of will, and the wood on the outside had seen better days, turning silver in patches and mossy in others, the sails looking like they hadn't turned in a good long time, hanging on by whatever their equivalent of fingernails were. The front door was a dusty red, whether through intent or lack of painting she couldn't tell, and round the side, she could just make out where the rambling grass of the field gave way to borders and beds and what could very well be a slightly overrun vegetable patch.

It was all so very Remus, she thought. In any other circumstance, she'd have considered it quaint, charming, even, would maybe have pictured herself here at one of the windows looking out, but today she couldn't help feeling that this windmill was a cocoon, that Remus had holed up inside for protection, and whatever the reason was, it was a cause for jangling nerves and sinking feelings, rather than romantic imaginings.

Tonks ran a hand through her hair, unable to summon the energy to turn it from the midnight blue she'd sported for John's benefit to something – anything – else, and then knocked on the door, her heart thumping in her chest as if she was a fourteen year old coming round to call on the boy she had a crush on.

She waited, and nothing happened, and so she knocked again, a little more loudly, calling, "Remus? It's me," at the door.

Another moment passed, and she was about to knock again, maybe try the handle in case it wasn't locked, when inside she heard the sounds of movement. She thought she could just make out a heavy sigh beyond, but before she had time to work out if it was really that or just the breeze, the door opened.

Remus blinked at the sunlight, pressing his fingers into his forehead and then running them over his eyebrows, pausing to pinch the bridge of his nose. His shirt was open at the neck and rumpled as if he'd slept in it, and his chin was unshaven, his hair falling into his eyes. In the sunlight, the grey reflected more than usual, and as she looked at him, taking him all in, she couldn't help ascribing him the word ashen. "Tonks?" he said hoarsely.

The word 'wotcher' rather froze on her lips as he blinked at her, frowning as if trying to work something out, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, realising that she really was unprepared for this, had no idea whatsoever what to say to him. "What are you doing here?" he said, and, glancing down, she noticed that clutched in his hand was a glass half-filled with something that looked an awful lot like Firewhiskey.

"I was worried about you," she said.

"Worried?"

"Yes," she said. "You've been gone for days – and then I sent you a Patronus and you didn't reply. That's worrying, wouldn't you say? You know, with the war and everything?"

She was trying to be jovial, pull off that light, mocking tone he used sometimes to dispel tension, although she wasn't sure she'd entirely pulled it off, her tone having ended up more genuinely annoyed than the playful version of it she'd intended.

"Oh," Remus said. His face fell a little and he shifted, resting lightly against the doorframe, his demeanour changing, softening. "Sorry – I – I meant to. I must have just lost track of time."

Remus frowned in chastisement at himself, and then smiled slightly, looking like himself for the first instant since he'd opened the door. "Come in," he said, standing back a little and gesturing to the lounge.

Tonks attempted a smile to try and make up for the semi-unintentional annoyance of her reply, and squeezed past him, stepping over the threshold, and into the smallish room that sat beyond him. She glanced around – there was a fireplace with a large chimney and a hefty wooden mantelpiece, on which nestled a photograph of Remus and his friends, no older than twenty, and above that was a landscape painting, a sweeping vista of the surrounding countryside in a style which Tonks recognised immediately as Mrs Lupin's. There was a dark wooden desk off to one side, piled high with papers and books, and a small sofa and armchair that looked either under-stuffed or well-worn near the fireplace.

The whole room, really, had a kind of comforting feel about it that somehow didn't make Tonks feel comforted at all. In any other circumstance, she thought ruefully, she'd be thinking about how homely it was, maybe imagine living here and mentally place her things, but now she just couldn't get away from the fact that Remus hadn't invited her here, and that meant she couldn't really take in the room and have pleasing thoughts about how endlessly Remus it was, much as she'd have liked to.

"I didn't mean to worry you," he said. "In fact, that's the exact opposite of what I intended."

"Maybe you shouldn't have left such a cryptic note, then."

She turned to face him, and Remus smiled, abashed, and glanced down at the carpet. "Sorry," he murmured, "I wasn't really thinking." He met her eye slowly, forced a smile. "How did you know where I was?" he said. "I didn't think I'd ever mentioned – "

"I went to see John," she said.

"Oh. How is – "

Tonks sighed, stopping him, because she didn't really want to give in to the desire for small talk, get caught up in some inconsequential conversation, she just wanted to know what he was doing here, because not knowing –

"Look, Remus," she said. "I can tell you he's fine and dance around and try and guess what's wrong, but I'd rather you just tell me. What's all this about?"

Remus took a deep breath and let it out as a low, hollow murmur, setting his glass down on the edge of the desk. "I'm sorry I worried you, truly," he said. "I just wanted some time to get this sorted in my own mind before we talked about it, and it took a little longer than I expected, and – "

"Before we talked about what?"

Remus ran a hand over his face, then met her eye, something rather pained about his expression. "Dumbledore wants me to go away," he said.

"Away?" she said. "Where?"

Remus closed his eyes for a second, his hands darting for his pockets as he leant back on the desk, almost as if he'd expected that he wouldn't have to explain any more, hadn't wanted to. "There's a group of werewolves," he said evenly. "They've a camp on the borders where they've been amassing for some time. We've been monitoring them, the involvement they have with the Death Eaters, and now, Dumbledore feels it's time for me to put myself at their heart and report on them, perhaps try and change their minds about the side they've picked."

His tone was dispassionate, almost the same one he'd use to tell her some snippet of information about nifflers, but when she met his eye she could see the conflict in them, the anger, almost. Tonks stepped closer, unable, really, to fathom what Remus was saying over the furious and frantic pounding of her heart. She must be misunderstanding. She _must_ be. Was Dumbledore really asking Remus to be a spy? "You mean he wants you to – "

"Go underground is, I believe, the phrase," he said dryly.

Tonks swallowed. With everything she'd imagined – this was just –

"But you – can't," she said, because it was the only thing she could think of.

Remus closed his eyes, some battle she couldn't define raging on his forehead and his jaw. Tonks watched him, waiting for him to say that he wasn't going, that he'd thought about it and it was too much, that he was already putting his life on the line and he'd told Dumbledore no. She clung to the idea that _that_ was what he was doing here, working through his guilt about not doing all he could for the Order, for Dumbledore.

She clung to the thought, but a moment passed, and then another, and apart from the ticking of a clock somewhere, the room remained silent, the words she longed for, words that would prove that this wasn't going to happen refusing to come.

Eventually Remus looked up, meeting her eye with such an utterly forlorn gaze that she knew it'd be burned into her memory forever. Instantly, she knew. He hadn't said no at all. "You're not – you haven't – you –

"Please don't ask me not to go," Remus said quietly. "I don't want to, and if you ask me to stay, I will, and I can't."

"Remus – "

A dozen sentences fractionally formed on her lips, words about how long he'd be away, what he'd do, what she'd do without him –

Others about why was this happening, why was it happening now when things had been going so well, didn't they deserve to be happy?

But as they half, quarter-formed, they felt meaningless and impossibly hollow, and Tonks couldn't utter them, and so she just gaped at him, heart thundering, a vague sick feeling in her stomach, thinking that this couldn't really be happening, because how could Remus be leaving?

It was ridiculous. He couldn't leave.

"It's Greyback," Remus said, his fingers rising to his jaw, rubbing absently over his stubble. "He's – " He stopped, and then met her eye almost tentatively, unease written into every inch of his expression.

"The one who bit you," Tonks said, a little surprised that she could form words, not at all surprised how flat they sounded.

Remus nodded. "He's as close to evil as anyone gets, Tonks," he said. "He destroys people's lives and revels in their despair. He's twisted – cruel. It's fun to him to pull families apart, and – " Remus swallowed, his gaze darting to the ceiling for a moment. "He's targeting children. The Death Eaters use him to scare people into doing what they want, but he can't be controlled. I think they think he's a pet dog, that he won't turn on them, that he'll be predictable and take orders like they do, only bite who they tell him to – but he doesn't care about any of that. He just – " Remus spread his hands in front of him, shaking his head sadly. "He likes to bite them young, raise them the way he wants away from any kind of normal influence if he can. We don't know how many he's got, but – "

"Isn't there another way?" Tonks said. "Couldn't we just – I don't know – storm the camp and disband it, or something?"

Remus leant back on the desk, shaking his head. "Dumbledore wants information," he said. "It's not about disbanding the camp, it's about trying to turn them our way – and I'm – well, I'm the only one who's likely to make it over the threshold."

"Remus – "

"I have to go," he said tersely, cutting her off. "I can't sit back and watch while he uses people's lives as toys."

The anger in his voice startled her a little, but there was something about the sharpness of his tone that made her wonder if it was really her he was talking to, or himself he was trying to convince. She met his eye, and he winced a little in apology, then looked away in a gesture so reminiscent of the first night they'd met she wanted to race across the room and hug him to her and never let go. But then, they'd been playful. Now –

How had it all come to this?

Tonks wanted to pinch herself. Surely this couldn't be real. She couldn't have gone from having stupidly romantic thoughts about mugs nestled together on the draining board to this so quickly in anything other than a nightmare.

"What about – " She stalled, swallowed, thinking how selfish it was to be thinking about them at a time when there were actual lives at stake.

"Us?" Remus met her eye directly, smiled a little, and then looked down at the carpet. "That's what I've been thinking about."

Tonks wasn't sure why, but the softness of his voice worried her more than anything else had done. "What's there to think about?" she said, adopting a rather falsely cheerful tone that she feared wasn't nearly as convincing as she'd hoped. "You won't be away forever and we're used to having to fit things in when we can – we've always had to, haven't we, and so far it's not been too bad."

Remus chuckled, and Tonks wondered who it was _she_ was trying to convince, when minutes ago the thought of him going away had made her nauseous and mere seconds ago she'd been equating the situation with a nightmare. But she had to try and be positive, didn't she? He was obviously upset about it – it was down to her, wasn't it, to try and bolster them, and –

"No, no it hasn't," he said.

Sighing, Remus dragged his hands out of his pockets and ran his fingers through his hair, and when his gaze met hers it was laced with a sadness that made her insides protest that she should do something, although she didn't have the faintest idea what. "I know it'll be hard," she said, scratching around for something – anything – to say, some sliver of something that looked even a bit like hope to fasten on, "but if you think about it, nothing'll really change except we won't see each other very often – " As she said the words, her voice cracked, because why was she even trying to claim that that wasn't an awful, monumental shift? " – and, I mean," she continued, swallowing the thought, "I was thinking about the Hogsmeade thing anyway, so – I don't know how often you'd be able to get away, but – I'd be fairly close – "

She trailed off, her words stolen by the thought, the image, of her in Hogsmeade, sitting around some barren room, an imitation of herself, racked with worry as she waited for news from Remus, underground, and him doing Merlin knew what just to survive.

She tried to blot the images out. She knew what happened to spies. She knew what happened if they got caught, and she could barely bring herself to imagine what a man – if he even deserved the word – like Greyback would do if he found out. More than that, she knew what happened to spies who _didn't_ get caught, how some of them hardened, became a version of themselves they never knew existed, became someone else almost so they wouldn't be doing what they had to themselves. She knew that some of them ended up sympathising with the people they were spying on, became one of the people they were supposed to be fighting against, and she knew that some of them disintegrated under the pressure, the weight of lies and betrayals, impossibly hard decisions and inaction, crushing them.

She closed her eyes, barely knowing which outcome was worse.

Remus knew all of that too, she supposed, and now she knew what had driven him here, she couldn't say she blamed him entirely for wanting time and space to think.

Tonks glanced down at the carpet, tracing the faint pattern on it and trying to force her mind to shut up about spies and stop hurling images of her alone and him trapped in some God-forsaken camp at her so she could actually _think_, think about what to say, how to make this doable, how to make herself feel better because at the moment she felt rather on the brink of disintegrating herself, as if her insides were missing and she was about to cave.

She looked up at Remus, suddenly realising that he hadn't said anything, that he hadn't leapt in with a yes, some agreement that what she'd suggested would work, that he'd be able to get away and would love to see her occasionally. Had it been fanciful to think they could keep each other going, even when they were apart?

A minute passed, two, and Remus' continuing silence made Tonks' nerves twitch and her heart thump – more so than the idea of him going away did on its own.

They'd talked about it, about what would happen if she was sent to Hogsmeade, and at the time they'd agreed that no, it wouldn't be ideal, but nothing about things so far had been for them, and they'd done all right. They'd both said that whatever happened, they'd just face it with a bloody-minded determination, because a time like this was when people needed each other the most. She'd taken comfort in those words, thought that she could trust them, that whatever happened with the war and their involvement in it, they'd have each other to cling to.

And Remus was there, a few feet away across the lounge – so why weren't they clinging? Why did they suddenly feel miles apart?

Her mind was a cacophony of thought, all this new information jostling for a place in her head, but the one thought that surfaced and shouted the loudest was that Remus hadn't touched her at all since she'd arrived. How long had it been since he hadn't kissed her in greeting, or placed a reassuring hand on her arm, the small of her back?

Did that mean something? She'd been irritated with him, but they should be holding hands, offering each other solace – hugging, even, shouldn't they, at a time like this?

Her mind whirled. If this was something they were going to get through together, they should be – _feel_ – together, shouldn't they? The thought made panic prickle on her skin, because she couldn't help feeling that at the moment they felt like individuals, she having come here because she was worried, and him alone, thinking, wondering what to do.

Tonks wished that he would say something. Remus was always so good with words of comfort, making her believe that everything was going to be all right, but he just stared at the carpet, his brow furrowed, his fingers tightening and then loosening on the edge of the desk.

Maybe she should say something else – maybe it was her turn to be convincingly comforting? Tonks pressed her lips together, trying desperately to think what to do. She should say something – tell him that it would be all right because they loved each other –

But suddenly that felt woefully inadequate and cheesy. Being asked to be a spy, to risk his life, as he surely would be, was bad enough. For Remus to be facing a man who'd wreaked so much destruction on him personally –

She couldn't imagine what he must be thinking. Was love enough of a barricade against that? Was it enough for her to know how he felt if she didn't get to see him every day, even once a week, have it reiterated in the little things he did, the way he smiled at her, said her name?

Tonks glanced out of the window, then back at the painting above the mantelpiece. Mrs Lupin really had done a fabulous job –

For some reason, the thought made her throat tighten, and she closed her eyes as the enormity of what was going to happen hit her like the crash of a wave. Remus was going away, and whatever happened, whether she went to Hogsmeade and sometimes they both managed to get away or not, everything was going to be different. He wasn't going to be there when she'd had a bad day – would she even be able to contact him at all? She wouldn't get to hear his little jokes about his own inadequate cooking, hear stories about his time at Hogwarts, about Sirius, wouldn't be able to fall asleep in his arms every night, thinking that everything else might be wrong, but at least this, this was right –

She swallowed. She didn't even want to think about the reality of what Remus would have to do. How did the werewolves live? He'd said a camp on the borders – but what did that mean? What would he do at the full moon? She'd heard rumours about werewolves on the rampage, had dismissed them as just that, but –

And Greyback, the man who'd been responsible for everything he'd been through, everything he'd suffered, and his father – how on earth would he cope?

"Remus?"

Her voice had a slightly cracked and desperate quality to it, but she couldn't help it. Remus lifted his head slowly, met her eye, and that same quiet pleading he'd had before was there still, but now it was tempered by something else, something that was redolent of the cloud his eyes had had just after Sirius had died. She almost couldn't bear to look.

"I don't like it any more than you do," he said. "Less, probably – "

"Then don't go."

The words were out of her mouth before she'd even had a chance to think them through, and she winced at herself for saying them, because he'd asked her not to, hadn't he? With everything he was facing, how could she not even stick to that?

She wanted to kick herself – and yes, it was what she felt – she didn't want him to go, of course she didn't, couldn't even imagine herself saying goodbye to him, not knowing what would happen, but –

Shouldn't she be stronger than this? She'd always known, ever since she'd signed up for the Order that there'd be sacrifices, and Remus was a key member – it wasn't entirely out of the blue that he'd been asked to do something as important and dangerous as this. Tonks pressed her lips together against the suffocating emotion of rather indeterminate nature rising in her chest. She'd thought she'd be prepared for something like this, that there was nothing she wouldn't do to build a safer, better world –

But she hadn't banked on falling so completely in love, and having to offer that up to be taken.

"Don't," he said, sighing, and this time, rather than pleading, there was a chastising note to his tone, and in spite of everything else she felt – sadness and anger and just despair at the thought – annoyance nipped at her too.

She swallowed, looking him straight in the eye. "It's not that easy," she said. "I can't pretend I'm not upset."

"I'm not asking you to," he said.

"Then what? Am I the only one who thinks this – what we have – is too important to just give up?"

"Tonks – " Remus ran a hand over his face, pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows bunching together. "This is why I came here," he said. "I wanted to think it all through, have it all sorted in my head before I told you."

"Well I'm sorry for caring and messing up your plan – "

"Please don't be childish, Tonks," he said, his tone caught somewhere between weariness and irritation. "I don't think it's really – "

"Childish?" she said, caught herself somewhere between incredulity and immense irritation. "I'm not the one who ran away to hide – "

"I wasn't – "

"What else would you call it?" she said. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? I suppose you'd have preferred it if I'd just sat around and waited while you made decisions that affected my life?"

"Tonks – I just – "

Remus got to his feet, pacing across the rug, his face taut and pale.

Tonks didn't really know what she saying – hadn't even really meant half of it – had just wanted to say something, anything, to show him how hurt and upset she was. She wasn't really sure where any of that had come from, whether it was what she really felt, some reaction to that prickle of annoyance, or some deep-seated worry that she was the only one who really cared about them. She didn't want to argue with him – Merlin, that was the last thing she wanted – but he had to see, didn't he, how shaken she was about this? And he was acting as if she should just accept it – and maybe if she'd had nearly a week like he had, to digest –

"If you think this is something I want," he said, "you're woefully mistaken."

"It's something you've agreed to, though, isn't it?" she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them, her tone angrier than she'd expected. "Something you've agreed to without even talking to me about it, even though it affects me."

"I had no _choice_," Remus said, fisting his hand in his hair, his voice rising.

For a moment, the word rang around the room, and they just stared at each other.

Tonks knew that this wasn't really going how she wanted, and yet she couldn't think how to get back to what she wanted, couldn't think what to say that would take her words back and make his disappear. "I have to go, Tonks," he said, a little more quietly but with that same steel she couldn't help but find chaffing – how could he not have discussed this – something this big – with her? How could he have made this decision on his own? "Surely you can see that in the grand scheme of things, one relationship – any relationship, regardless of the depth of feeling involved – doesn't really compare to everything else that's at stake?"

Tonks felt her body recoil a little, stung by this words.

"Well if that's what you think," she said, "it's no wonder you're such a disaster."

Remus flinched, swallowing heavily, his eyes flickering away from her gaze, darting around the room, everywhere but her. His jaw tightened, his hands bunched at his sides, and she watched as his chest rose and fell rapidly.

For a fleeting second, she was pleased. He'd had no right to call her childish, less right to make a decision like this on his own; but after that fleeting second had faded, the realisation that she'd hurt him – really hurt him – settled, and immediately she wanted to take her words back. "Remus, I'm – "

"No," he said. "You're right. I am. I think I'd better – "

Before Tonks could do anything, leap in with a contradiction, say something to make all this go away, Remus crossed the room, his eyes fixed upon the door. "Remus – don't go – I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did," he said, steadfastly refusing to meet her eye, "and you're right. It was foolish of me to believe that this would end anything other than badly."

Sunlight streamed in as he opened the door, and Tonks wanted to do something, grab his arm and pull him back, say something to make him stay – but found herself rooted to the spot. "I think it might be better," Remus said, "if you weren't here when I came back."

And with that, he closed the door behind him, without even offering her the briefest of glances over his shoulder.

* * *

Tonks had waited for him for hours. She'd sat on the floor in his lounge long after the sun had dipped below the horizon, watching as the room glowed orange and then sank into darkness around her. She'd thought he'd come back, had pictured apologies, had run through what she'd say in response to a hundred imaginary questions more times than she could count, but Remus hadn't appeared, and so eventually she'd given up and come home.

Only it didn't really feel like home any more.

Tonks pushed the door open, knowing that the room would be dark, there'd be no light from where he was reading, no intrinsic sense of warmth that came from knowing she'd have someone to spend the night with, and the thought that maybe she'd never have that again settled like a pocket of ice in her stomach.

She closed the door behind her, let her eyelids flutter down and leant back, resting her shoulders on the wood. How had any of this happened? In one day, how had they gone from homemade vegetable lasagne and shared jokes, togetherness, to this?

"Hello." Tonks jumped, clutching at her chest, and her heart raced for a moment with surprise and then with something else entirely. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said.

Tonks swallowed, trying to press her heart back into place, just making out Remus' silhouette moving closer. "Wotcher," she murmured, wondering why he'd been sitting in the dark, wanting to laugh at the idea that they'd both been doing the same thing, only in different places. She wanted to, and yet anything even approaching amusement was caught in her chest, weighed down by everything else. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't like the way we left things," he said, and suddenly she felt relief wash through her.

"Me either."

Remus stepped closer, closer than he ever had been that evening at his house, and his eyes roved her face, just catching the light from the lamppost outside the window. He swallowed, and in the darkness she swore she could hear the pound of his heart, although logic told her it was far more likely to be hers, beating its erratic rhythm on the inside of her chest at a truly deafening volume. "What I was thinking about before," he said. "I was just trying to figure out how I can make the best of this for you."

Tonks opened her mouth, but no words came immediately. She was sure she'd been angry at him, but now, as he looked at her almost imploringly, she wasn't entirely sure why. "For me? I don't – I'm not sure I understand."

"Being with you," he said, "it's been – "

He rocked back on his heels, and the word he seemed to be searching for didn't come. He met her eye with something that looked like apology, and then swallowed, and the intensity of his gaze was such that her knees almost gave in to the urge to fold. "I'm just not sure it's fair to ask you to stay with me when I don't know what will happen," he said.

His words settled in the air and slowly seeped in. Tonks wasn't quite sure what he was saying, that it wasn't fair, but he'd do it anyway, or –

"I don't think," he said, wincing a little at his own words, "well – it doesn't seem entirely right to expect you to give up your life, the things you'd like for yourself, just because I have to."

"Remus – "

"I know you want to tell me not to be defeatist," he said, "but the truth is that I'm not being."

Tonks closed her eyes for a second, too tired, too much of an emotional mess to really fathom whether he was right or not, and when she opened them again he was closer still, although there was uncertainty in his expression, even as he lifted his hand to her face and scuffed her cheek with his thumb. "I'm still leaving," he said, and she swallowed again, her chest tight with something she thought might be tears, "I'm sorry, but I am, and – "

She wanted to tell him that she understood, because part of her did. Part of her knew that if it was her, if Dumbledore had asked something like this of her, she wouldn't have been able to say no either – and she'd have talked about it with Remus, but ultimately she couldn't say hand on heart that she'd have made a different decision. And with his father, what had happened to him, the way all of this was connected –

Part of her understood.

The rest was busy aching with missing him before he'd even gone, though.

" – I can't offer you any guarantees," he said.

"I know."

"But – " He paused, glancing at the ceiling for a moment and then meeting her eye. His fingertips stilled on her cheek and his gaze was as soft as it ever had been. "I love you more than anything," he said quietly. "I wanted you to know that, regardless – "

"Remus – "

"I mean it," he said, "so please, let me say it."

She nodded, pressing her lips together, even as they shook in protest. "I want only good things for you," he said, "so I don't want you to wait for me. If you meet someone else – someone who can make you happy, someone who's not a disaster – "

"I don't want anyone else," she said, resting her hands on his waist, inching him closer, hoping he'd feel certainty in her fingers. "How can you even think that I'd consider – "

Remus let out a breathy laugh, and it tickled her face and reminded her of so many other moments –

"It means a lot to me that you'd say that," he said.

"It's true – I don't – "

"Maybe not now," he said softly, his tone wry and yet rather understanding, too. "War changes people, though, Tonks. People change themselves, harden – sometimes circumstance makes you fall out of love. Things happen that you don't expect, things you think will always be there sometimes aren't, get taken, or – "

He trailed off, and she wanted to protest, say things that were romantic and clichéd to the point of being undignified, but didn't. She could show him, couldn't she? Hadn't Sirius always said that when it came to Remus, he wouldn't listen to words?

She cleared her throat and looked up at him. "When are you leaving?" she said, amazed that the question didn't catch in her throat.

"Couple of weeks," he said, and Tonks bit her lip, hard, nodding slowly to keep from doing anything else – crying, or saying that that was far too soon and she needed more time. "I'll need a while to track them, work out the exact structure of the pack and how to make the right move at the next full moon," he said. "I'll be leaving the day after Harry's birthday."

Tonks let her eyes fall closed for a second, pressing her cheek a little against his hand, trying not to think about how on earth she was going to say goodbye to him. Where was she even going to start? She tried not to picture it, her a mess of tears on the doorstep and him walking away –

"I'll go now," he said, and she looked up at him, almost horrified at the thought, "if that would be easier."

"God, Remus – "

"Whatever you want."

"I can't have what I want," she said, and he closed his eyes, regret etched into every line of his face. "But – stay," she added.

She bit her lip again, idly wondering if she'd make it bleed, not caring if she did, and Remus nodded faintly, stroking her cheek in what she thought was understanding or reassurance, or something that she might not be able to define, but her insides ached with knowing she'd miss. "I thought about not telling you at all," he said, swallowing heavily. "But that didn't seem entirely fair – I just – I'm sorry. There's no way to make this fair and – it's so far from what you deserve, what I want – "

He leant in, resting his forehead against hers, evidently as bereft of words as she felt.

Tonks tried not to think, to just savour the moment, let the warm feel of his skin on hers seep through her, because after he did leave, who knew when their next chance would be? And they had a couple of weeks, she thought – a lot of people didn't get that. She tried to believe she should be grateful, but the thought was like barbed wire around her heart, digging in and just making it smart more.

"I just – " She stopped. Was there any way at all to put what she felt, the enormity of it, into words? "I don't know what I'm going to do without you."

She almost laughed at how clichéd and – small her words sounded, how slightly they encompassed everything, but Remus pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her against his chest. "You'll be fine," he said, murmuring the words against her hair. "You were fine before you met me, weren't you?"

Tonks let out a watery snigger against his shirt. "That's not really the point though, is it?"

"No," he murmured.

She closed her eyes, nestled further into his chest, and for a moment they just stood with their arms around each other. She still couldn't quite imagine it, what it'd be like here without him.

Merlin, he was everywhere here. Their lives had become so wonderfully tangled she wasn't sure they'd ever be able to separate them, wasn't sure she ever wanted to. And it was more than that, because he was tangled with her, wasn't he? With her heart, and with her thoughts and – everywhere. When she thought about the present and the future, he was always there, and when she thought about the past it was only really for things she wanted to tell him, stories she wanted to share.

And she had no idea, none whatsoever, how she was going to cope when he was gone.

She'd take the job in Hogsmeade, she thought, keep busy, be closer to Dumbledore in case –

She couldn't even finish the thought, and so she just pressed her cheek into his chest, trying to bite back the surge of emotion as his fingers tightened in response on her shoulder.

He held her like that for a moment, and then his fingers wandered down her spine, back up again slowly, and played at the nape of her neck. He traced patterns on her skin that were deliciously familiar and yet felt strangely new too, and she shivered a little, because the usual tingles were there, but this time they positively flared, shooting right through her, ignited by some unfamiliar emotion that was intense and fragile and almost intangible.

Her skin warmed, prickled as his hands moved lower, and she closed her eyes, trying to savour how everything felt. Her fingers untucked his shirt entirely of their own accord, crawling beneath to feel his skin, and she smiled a little as he sucked in his breath, even though she knew her hands weren't cold. She tilted her face up, and his lips met hers as if he'd known exactly the second that she'd do it, and just like always, they were a perfect fit.

His lips were soft, at first, against hers, lingered, stopping short of what she could feel they both wanted, and then he took her face in his hands, kissing her more urgently as his fingers traced her jaw, her cheek, her ear, played on her neck, touch laden with something that was entirely new. She responded – couldn't not – as insistently, running her hands over his chest, his shoulders, pushing her fingers into his hair, trying to memorise every inch of him, revelling in everything, the tiny movements of his hands, the way he shifted against her, the way his lips caught, breath hitched, against hers.

She pressed closer, trying not to think that she wanted forever and yet they only had a couple of weeks, tried to feed everything she felt into how she kissed him so he'd know, and he could take it with him. His hands slid down her back, pulling her against him, making her feel impossibly alive with guttering sensation, and his kisses were by turns ardent and fervent, then the kind of languid that made her almost forget what she was doing. The desire for more pounded in her veins, and as they drifted towards the bedroom, she tried not to think too much, not to get wound up in thinking beyond tonight –

But every kiss, light and tender or heavy and loaded, every caress, every catch of their breath against the other's lips, was goodbye, and she knew that Remus knew it, felt it just as keenly as she did.

* * *

The next time Remus left her a note, it was waiting for her on her bedside table when she woke. The paper was neatly folded, the creases impeccable, and her name was written on the front in black ink.

They'd agreed not to say goodbye; she didn't need to read it, though, to know that Remus really had gone, and that this time, there was no guarantee that he'd ever be coming back.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to those of you who reviewed the last chapter, and anyone leaving one for this (admittedly rather depressing) one gets a werewolf kiss in a flavour of their choosing: the sleepy good morning kind, the lunchtime pick-me-up, or a late-night one filled with all kinds of promise. No goodbyes guaranteed ;). **


	22. The Ghosts of Christmas Past

**A/N: Just to give you fair warning – this chapter's a bumper festive edition (not quite the longest so far, but very nearly), so I recommend you have a warm/stiff drink, a mince pie, or perhaps a block of Kendal Mint Cake to hand while attempting it ;). **

* * *

Snow had fallen on Hogsmeade, deep and crisp and even.

Or cold and wet and kind of sludgy, although Tonks could see why that rather more realistic line hadn't made it into the final version of the carol. Nothing poetic about sludge – but then there was nothing particularly poetic about Christmas in Hogsmeade this year, so she offered a wry smile to the stars above and silently congratulated them on at least getting that right.

It had been snowing for about a week, she thought. The first night it had started, she'd sat up and watched it come down in flurries, almost smiling at how the flakes danced and glowed in the lamplight, pleased when it settled and stuck and changed the way things looked, although she wasn't quite sure why.

The temperature had plummeted after that, and had given her an almost permanently red nose and fingers as she patrolled the frozen cobbled streets. Not that she minded. She was glad to see colour wherever she could these days, unable to produce any of her own because –

Because she didn't have the energy, or couldn't be bothered, or something. Truthfully, she hadn't really thought about the whys of it in case the real answer was more depressing than her being dog-tired and worried right down to her bones about Remus, and Merlin, she had enough to think about without adding whys about her appearance to the mix.

She hadn't heard from him, from Remus. She hadn't expected to, really. After all, it was hardly the done thing for spies to sneak away and owl their loved ones, and she didn't think that the werewolf camp would be connected to the Floo network for idle chit-chatting with the wizarding world, or that something as unusual as a Patronus would go undetected.

Even if there had have been a way to keep in touch, Tonks wasn't sure what there was to say. They could say that they missed each other, but that much was obvious, wasn't it? They could lament their situation, wish that things were different, even lose themselves in idle shared daydreams about after, the mythical _when this is over_ – but _of course_ they wished things were different, and although daydreams were nice, they only made reality feel colder and harder when she returned. None of it really needed saying. Saying it would only have made things worse, Tonks thought. It was better like this.

She'd been telling herself the same thing for five months, and she still didn't really believe it.

She sighed, pressing her gloved hands together, and watched the blue cloud of breath drift away from her lips and into the darkness.

She'd thought that taking a post here, keeping busy, would help to keep her mind occupied and make it easier to cope. And she _had_ been busy – she'd been called to the school at least a couple of times a week when Dumbledore went away, and otherwise there was plenty to do: streets to patrol, Dementors to keep at bay, shop-keepers to listen to as they lamented their lack of trade and talked in less and less jovial tones about upping to Knockturn Alley, since that seemed to be where business was briskest these days. There was plenty to actually _do_, and living above the Hog's Head meant that there were always people – or other creatures – in the bar to talk to if she fancied it, and Proudfoot and Savage were always playing cards if they weren't on duty, and didn't mind if she joined in.

Tonks filled her days with tasks, broke them down into units – in the morning, there was breakfast she hardly ever fancied eating, a briefing with the other Aurors, and then she'd send a Patronus to Moody to let him know what they were up to and await instruction from him or Dumbledore. Afternoons were spent on casework, chasing leads that normally proved the baseless manifestation of public panic, and then after dusk, she'd either be patrolling or off on some mission for Mad-Eye. One thing lead into another, and it was easier like that, to not get up in the morning and see the whole day loom in front of her, but just to try and get through each thing before focusing on the next.

That was the theory, anyway. The only problem was that none of it truly kept her occupied, because her thoughts were always half somewhere else, drifting away on the breeze. She didn't even really know where it was that they drifted to, because she didn't know where Remus was actually located, what it was he was doing; her thoughts just weren't there with her, were off in some imaginary place, attempting to keep him company, whatever he was doing.

Tonks had tried not to fret about Remus, and in truth it was getting easier as time passed. The first few weeks had been the worst; she really had slept with one eye open in case he returned, in case he needed her for something, in case he'd managed to get away. Every creak of the floorboards outside her room had had her rushing to the door just to check, imagining he'd seen the light was off and hadn't wanted to disturb her – she'd even thought about leaving a note that said 'please do disturb' on the doorknob, or sleeping with a light on –

But that had faded after a month or so, or she was too tired to keep it up, or had got used to it, she wasn't really sure what it was.

Time had passed and she had changed, she thought, become accustomed to this horrible situation in a way she'd never imagined she'd have been able to. She'd worried about Remus hardening, becoming someone new to cope, but in truth she was the one who had. She didn't really feel that different on the inside – she'd always taken her responsibilities seriously and now she just had less enthusiasm and energy for cheerfulness and frivolity on the surface, but she could see in other people's eyes that they were worried about the shift in her demeanour.

Molly had always been kind to her, but these days she shot her endless looks of concern, placed her hand over hers and squeezed it reassuringly, offering endless cups of too-sweet tea and plates of shortbread as if they alone could make the world a better place. Moody was the same, although his methods were a little different – he'd take every opportunity to fire questions at her about protocol and procedure, had even tried to hex her a couple of times from behind to test her constant vigilance. She'd got him with one of her patented vegetable transfiguration spells, though, had turned his wooden leg into a marrow, which had reassured him a little, and had given her a much needed snigger at a time when she really hadn't had a lot to even smile about.

It was nice that they were concerned, she thought, nice that she had people to even notice that she was acting differently, but sometimes the way they looked at her, as if she was about to dissolve into a puddle of tears on the carpet, was a bit disconcerting. Hadn't she proved she was stronger than that?

Tonks tensed her fingers inside her gloves, trying to encourage blood to flow back into the tips and unfreeze them a little. She checked the street, but there was nothing more suspicious going on than a very fluffed-up cat walking on its toes in the snow, stopping every now and then to flick the stuff off its feet with a rather resigned yet irritated expression on its face.

She almost wished something would happen to distract her from her thoughts. Nothing major – she wasn't sure she had the energy for anything like that, although she'd summon it if required, of course – but a spot of petty larceny, a drunken brawl, something small and yet distracting wouldn't go amiss.

But even as she wished for it, she knew it wouldn't help. Even when she'd chased down suspects, sat in very important meetings, it had been as if she was only half there, and hard as she tried and much as she longed to immerse herself in something other than worry, half of her seemed to be all she had to give.

The rest was –

Drifting away to keep Remus company.

Of course she missed him. She missed him so much that the word barely did the feeling justice – didn't at all, in fact, encapsulate how she felt.

It was the little things, really, that did it – she'd catch herself turning in her chair to tell him something, roll over in bed expecting to find his warm form to nestle against, would look for him at meetings so they could sit together, only to find a coarse pain in her chest when she realised anew that she was alone. She was just so used to him being there; it was always a bit surprising, still, when he wasn't. _Entwined_ was the word she'd started to use when she thought of them, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do now that the person she'd integrated and wound her life up in wasn't there anymore.

There were rather less poetic problems too, rather more practical decisions to be made. She hadn't really known what to do with the things he'd left at her flat. When she'd shut the place up and moved into her room above the pub, she'd brought a couple of his jumpers with her in case – although in case of what, she wasn't really sure. In case he suddenly found himself in the wilderness in burning need of that grey jumper that would be the perfect complement for frosty autumn mornings, she thought, with a mirthless huff.

She'd brought a couple of his books with her too, the ones she knew were his, rather than borrowed from Dumbledore or the Hogwarts library, pilfered from Grimmauld Place. She could always tell which belonged to Remus, because they were worn as if he'd read them a million times, the spines cracked and the binding coming away in separate gold threads. She liked to think that they smelled of him, that there was some connection in holding something he'd looked at so often in her hands, although she knew there wasn't and in truth all old books really did smell exactly the same.

Tonks sighed, glancing down the road, watching as the moonlight bounced off the frosty cobbles. It was unusually cold tonight, the snow re-freezing in places where people had trodden it into mush in their hurry not to be here after dusk, and that meant the streets were almost deserted. She'd seen an old man ten minutes ago, muttering to himself about a stiff upper lip and how the young 'uns should be ashamed of themselves for scurrying away, and she'd met his eye, offered him a smile and wished him merry Christmas, getting an admiring doth of his pointed hat for her trouble.

One more round of the village, she thought, and then she'd turn in. It was nearly eight anyway, and Proudfoot would take over for the night shift. She frowned a little at the thought, wondering if she should find a way to let him know how cold it was and that he should don his extra warming-charmed socks, and maybe bring a book to stave off the boredom of patrolling empty streets for crises that didn't happen.

Tonks knew what it was about, them being stationed here. It was all about being seen to be doing something, Scrimgeour said, inspiring confidence, and she'd bitten her lip so as not to say that nothing would inspire more confidence than a headline letting everyone know a couple of significant Death Eaters were back where they belonged in Azkaban, or that You-Know-Who was gone forever.

It had been a long time, though, since she'd shared her grievances with anyone but Moody and Kingsley. The other Aurors were content enough to patrol and keep their mouths shut, follow fruitless leads, as long as they could go home for Christmas, and sometimes she wondered why they'd become Aurors at all if they didn't want to fight, liked to keep their heads down so much. Not that she blamed them entirely. When everyone around them was scurrying to buy last-minute gifts, burning their mouths on hot chestnuts and waving to friends, it was hard not to let thoughts wander homewards, and she thought she was probably being harsh, that they were just as frustrated by the lack of progress as she was, but didn't want to voice it.

She just –

She wished she felt as if she was making a difference. If she didn't have the Order, she thought, a sense that all of this wasn't for nothing, she really would be going mad.

Tonks glanced in the window of Gladrags, taking in the fine dress robes in Christmas reds and greens on display, the fake glittering snow they were floating above, the _Conjured_ holly berries that dangled in the window. A year ago, she'd passed this same window having spotted Remus lingering outside the jewellers, and had raced towards him with a flutter in her chest, out of breath when she got there from walking too fast and eagerness to see him.

As the scene formed in her head, her fingers rose instinctively to her throat, where the pendant he'd given her sat, warm against her skin. Had it really only been a year?

She pushed the idea away, because that wasn't a train of thought that was likely to get her to the end of her shift in one emotional piece, and let her hand fall away and busy itself balling in her pocket instead. She looked down the row at the shops, fancying herself warmed by the fairy-light and the sight of gingerbread houses in the window of Honeyduke's.

People had made an effort for Christmas: stockings hung above the fireplace in The Three Broomsticks as they always did, and there wasn't a doorway that didn't have holly around it or mistletoe swinging in the breeze, but even so, the whole place had a rather unfestive air of unease, and no amount of snow, or neatly darned red stockings, or even mistletoe and gingerbread houses could change that. People were trying, but….

It had been a long few months, Tonks thought, crossing the icy cobbles and heading for the end of the road, slipping a little and steadying herself on the wall. With a sigh she remembered the last time icy cobbles had got the best of her, when she'd been here with Remus. She could almost still feel his hands, steady and gentle on her arms.

That day, she'd actually thought he might kiss her – had longed for him to – but of course he'd waited, charmed mistletoe as an excuse instead, and, disappointed as she'd been on those icy cobbles outside the jewellers, she couldn't say she'd have traded that moment in the firelight.

In general, she tried not to think about it, about last Christmas, all the things they'd shared – hushed and worried conversations about Arthur, Remus laying a hand on her arm and telling her that Arthur was a fighter and he'd be fine, that Molly would too, that they'd look after her –

She tried not to revisit the nights they'd sat up, chatting over hot chocolate or mulled wine, sitting a little too close and talking about nothing in a way that made nothing absolutely riveting. She tried not to go over and over that exquisite first kiss, the way he'd looked into her eyes, firelight casting wonderful shadows on his face and making his eyes sparkle –

She_especially_ tried not to think about New Year, about Sirius dancing with Molly, dipping her so low her hair brushed the floor, of Fred and George's disco moves and the sound of mingled laughter in the air, the way she'd felt in his arms as they danced in the kitchen.

Foolish of her really, she thought, to fall in love at Christmas, because come December the first there was no escaping it, and every half-heard carol, every mug of mulled wine or proffered mince pie just reminded her of what she didn't have.

Ghosts of Christmas past, she thought.

She'd loved Christmas once upon a time, the bright colours, building excitement, the thought of buying people gifts and watching their faces light up as they opened them; now, that person felt like someone else entirely, but she barely recognised who was in her place, either.

Had it really only been a year?

She supposed it didn't do to dwell, and so Tonks checked the clock on the tower instead. Its large black hands told her that it was a little after eight, and so she sighed, turning on her heel and thinking that she should get back, although she couldn't say that the thought of returning to the Hog's Head for an instant two-wand-wave dinner and another night listening to the WWN and scanning _The Evening Prophet_ for anything to do with werewolves filled her with festive cheer.

Not that she had many other options. Molly had said she could pop round any time, and she had, on occasion, for tea and sympathy, although tonight she wasn't sure she could face going over yet again how she felt with someone who tried to offer reassurances that things would work out in the end. It wasn't that Tonks didn't want to hear that, didn't believe it herself, but Molly's worried frown, the plate after plate of shortbread and the too-sweet tea just made her feel guilty for not being cheerful, for worrying everyone on top of everything else, and she wasn't sure that was what she needed tonight. Molly had said she could go for Christmas dinner too, but –

The thought of all those faces, bright and cheerful and full of life...

She just wasn't sure she'd be able to drum up the enthusiasm to join in, and in truth she resented, a little, that other people had the chance to be with those they loved when she and Remus had been torn apart. There'd be questions too, about why she couldn't grow a pig snout to make Ginny laugh, why she was brown rather than pink or the festive red she'd sported last year, and how was she supposed to answer those when she didn't even really want to think about it herself?

She sighed. Most of all, there was the memory of last Christmas, so perfect and wonderful and vivid in her mind. Christmas should always be like that, she thought, and so, generous as the offer was, she'd turned it down, thinking that she'd keep busy and try and pretend it wasn't Christmas at all, that maybe that would lessen the longing, the ache in her chest to know a Christmas like that again.

Lost in her thoughts, she skittered a little on the cobbles and let out a dry huff to remind herself to keep her mind on what she was supposed to be doing, because the last thing she needed was a broken ankle. Concentrate, she thought. Just get back to the Hog's Head and eat your two-wand-wave dinner and stop being so bloody melancholy because it doesn't help.

Tonks set off with a new sense of purpose, placing her feet carefully in the patches that looked less icy than the rest, but just as she was about to turn onto the street that lead to the Hog's Head, she saw someone. Someone in a faded dragon-hide jacket and a stripy scarf who looked just a little bit too familiar. She quickened her pace – maybe he wouldn't see her, wouldn't recognise her if he did –

"Tonks?"

She flinched at the sound of that all too familiar voice. It couldn't be, and yet it did rather seem like –

Johnny Parker.

Tonks turned to face him as he strode towards her, some sentence about how she couldn't dally because she was on duty half-formed on her lips. "Wotcher," she said. "Sorry, but I can't – "

"Wow, Tonks, you look like shit."

Tonks stopped in her tracks, meeting Johnny's eye with a glare, the protest she'd been about to make as frozen as the cobbles beneath her feet. "Thanks," she said tartly, and Johnny winced.

"No, I meant – I just mean – are you all right?"

Tonks sighed. She was, in fact, very far from all right, but Johnny wasn't exactly the first person on her list of people to share that information with. "Fine," she muttered, and Johnny frowned, his eyes roving her face.

"You're not."

"I'm not really in the mood to argue about it."

"No – I just – " Johnny ran a hand through his hair, meeting her eye with a gaze that was as close to apologetic as he knew how. "Do you fancy a drink or something? A chat?" he said. He fiddled for a moment with the end of his scarf, peering at her through the darkness with something that looked very contrite and definitely concerned, ill at ease as he seemed making the offer. "I mean after everything, we can do that, can't we?"

Fleetingly, Tonks thought about telling him no, that she was busy. When they'd been together, she always had been, so it wasn't as if he wouldn't believe her – but she couldn't deny that a drink and a chat would be nice, and even though Johnny was far from the ideal candidate to accompany said drink and take part in said chat, she couldn't help thinking how lovely it would be to talk to someone who didn't really know about everything that was going on in the world, someone she knew didn't have bad news to share. "What about last time?" Tonks said. "You know, when Remus – "

His name caught in her chest, and she wondered how long it had been since she'd actually said it out loud. Weeks? Other people said it to her all the time – Remus is a survivor, been through worse than this, Remus wouldn't want you to worry yourself sick – but when had she said it? She couldn't remember.

She was drawn back to the conversation by Johnny smirking, sighing a little – he looked away, his face softening, and for a second, Tonks could remember, for the first time in ages, what she'd liked about him. "Well," he said, "unless he's a lot smaller than I remember and you've got him in a pocket or something, he's not here, is he?"

Tonks laughed, and the sound was alien, yet welcome too, and she watched, a little disbelievingly, as the cloud of breath her laugh had produced drifted away. She'd had no intention of seeking out company, much as she thought it might do her good, and Johnny was far from an ideal choice, but the more she thought about it, the more a drink and a chat seemed like a good idea. Better than a two-wand-wave dinner at any rate, she thought. "I suppose it is Christmas," she said, smiling her agreement.

"Come on, then," he said.

They decided to eschew the dubious hospitality of the Hog's Head and headed for the Three Broomsticks, and when they got there, it was almost half-full. A fire blazed in the grate, and every so often would flare green as people Flooed in, and though the place was rather a shadow of its usual self in the week before Christmas, it was still far more lively than anywhere else Tonks had been of late. She pulled off her gloves, rubbing her fingers together to try and divest them of their prickling cold-fuelled burn, eyeing herself cautiously in the mirror behind the bar and thinking that Johnny hadn't been too far off the mark with his observation.

They ordered two mugs of mulled cider, and sat down at a small table by the window, turning their chairs towards the fire. Snow had started to fall again, just the odd flake, and as her feet started to thaw, Tonks was very glad her patrol had ended, that she'd accepted the invite, because her room above the Hog's Head was rather depressing and cold, and never did much to ameliorate her mood. She turned her attention to her mug, watched the cloves float on top of the cider for a second, then blew on them, making them bob. Ancient spies curled up into her nostrils, and made her feel rather more Christmassy than she had done previously, even as she'd bought presents and wrapped them and taken them to the Post Office to send.

Thawing feet, cider and a slightly less dim view of Christmas, however, didn't change the fact that she hadn't much of an idea what to say to Johnny. The last time they'd seen each other, Remus had shot Twiglets up his nose, and she wasn't quite sure what conversational gambit made up for that, if it needed making up at all.

And, well, it was slightly more than that. There was more to the uneasy silence than just sitting with someone who was ex, because Johnny had seen her like this – all washed out and colourless – before, back in the days when she'd thought she'd known what a broken heart felt like.

It hadn't been this bad then, but –

Well, he'd seen it, and he'd know what it meant, or be able to guess, and she wasn't sure she had the energy to really talk about it.

Tonks took a sip of her drink, swallowing it slowly and feeling it warm her as she did, and met Johnny's eye, thinking that the one way to make sure he didn't bring up difficult subjects was to try and steer the conversation into safer territory. "What were you doing here anyway," she said, "roaming the streets at night? Don't you know it's dangerous?"

"I did get the leaflets, yeah," Johnny said, glancing into his drink, settling his fingers gently on the mug's curves. "But you know I like to live on the edge."

He looked up, and Tonks ran a hand over her jaw, battling a laugh at the thought, because much as Johnny looked the part, she didn't think she'd actually ever met anyone who lived less on the edge. "What?" he said, frowning a little, eyes narrowing in accusation.

"Nothing."

Tonks pressed her lips together, biting back some sarcastic comment about what he thought was edgier, the way he always copied his outfits exactly from his heroes on the front cover of _The Wizarding Musical Express_, or the way he'd bought lucky heather in the belief it might ward off Sirius Black (who, at the time, he'd believed was on the rampage, and might feasibly break in and murder him for no apparent reason).

Johnny looked away towards the window, gaze tracing the snowflakes that settled on the glass and melted as he battled a seemingly nervous grin. "Besides," he said, "I didn't have a present for my mum, and she's scarier than anything that might be out there."

Tonks smiled. That was true enough, she thought. Scary as she'd found Mrs Lupin initially, Johnny's mum was a hundred times worse, even before she'd thrown a trifle at her. "Did you find something?"

"Yeah," Johnny said. "Got her this vase thing that's supposed to be charmed so the water stays clear and fresh and the flowers last longer, or something."

"Nice."

"What about you?" he said, blowing on his cider and then raising the mug to his lips. "Don't suppose you were out late night shopping?"

"Not exactly," she said.

"Can you tell me what you were doing, or if you did, would you have to_Obliviate_ me?"

Tonks chuckled a little, remembering all the times she'd told him that when he asked about her work, and how he'd always eyed her a little warily when she said it, as if she really might be _Obliviating_ him in his sleep. "Based here at the moment," she said. "It's no secret, really – the Ministry wants people to know so they feel secure enough to go roaming around at night."

"Right."

"Not that anyone sane does, obviously," she added, smirking into her drink.

They were quiet for a moment, laughter from a table in the corner floating over towards them, and then Johnny knocked Tonks' boot with the toe of his, drawing her attention. "So what's up, then?" he said.

Tonks bit her lip, wanting to say 'nothing' and change the subject, but knowing that the lie of that was literally written all over her face. She should have looked into hair-dye charms or something, she thought – then at least people wouldn't be talking to her with their eyes constantly wandering over her wilted brown fringe, a frown on their foreheads as they debated whether or not to ask the question in their eyes. "Is it that bloke? The one who was far too handy with the Twiglets?"

Tonks let out a brief sniff of laughter at the thought, before the amusing image of Johnny writhing around on the floor gave way to what had happened afterwards, something she wasn't quite up to remembering fully, because every time she thought about it she got an odd stabbing pain in her chest, and wanted to crawl into the corner and try and hide from the world. "You don't have to – I'm fine, really," she said, meeting his eye with a smile that she hoped was convincing enough.

Johnny leant forward a little, resting his arms on the table. "Seriously, Tonks," he said, quietly, "I know we did some shitty things to each other – " Tonks started to murmur a protest about remembering it being a bit more one-sided than that, but Johnny raised a hand in conciliation, and she stopped. " – but, well, if you want to tell me what he's done –"

"He hasn't done anything."

The words were out of her mouth even before she'd considered the ramifications, the idea that now, she'd have to find some way of explaining what _had _happened, only without mentioning any of the pertinent details. She met Johnny's eye, and he cocked his head, evidently expecting more. Tonks swallowed. "It's not like that," she said. "He's just had to go away."

"Away?"

"Yeah," she said. "For work."

The lie came more easily than she'd thought it would, and she swallowed again, wishing she wasn't such a consummate professional at untruths as she'd evidently become.

Johnny nodded, lifting his mug to his lips and gesturing for her to go on. "He's been gone for months – I don't get to speak to him very often, and – I just miss him, I suppose," she said. She shook her head a little, thinking how small and even pathetic the words sounded, how they didn't really come close to expressing everything that was going on, everything she felt. "And what he's doing," she said, "it's not easy – kind of dangerous, actually, so I've been worried, and tired, and – "

"Working like a dog as usual."

Tonks shrank a little at the weary, knowing look in Johnny's eyes. "Yep," she said, sighing. "As always. It's kind of what I'm doing here," she added. "Keeping busy, you know?"

Johnny considered her for a moment, smiling in a way that, once upon a time, would have had her stomach somersaulting and her fingers reaching for the lapels on his leather jacket. "On the bright side, though," he said, "it is Christmas. I remember how you used to be like a five year old about it, with your advent calendars and those candles that count down as they burn and play Christmas carols – and I've never known anyone get quite as excited about cards and wrapping paper – "

"Little lacking in festive cheer this year, I'm afraid," Tonks said, studying the cloves in her mug again.

"Do you really expect me to believe you haven't played your _Christmas Gift From The Weird Sisters_ album at least once?"

"Well that's different," she said, smiling and lifting her mug to her lips. "That's a classic."

Johnny laughed, and she looked up, grateful for something she wasn't even sure of. "See?" he said. "Takes more than this to make Tonks a humbugger. I knew it."

Tonks smiled, wanting to tell him that that wasn't a real word, but biting back the impulse on account of him being so nice to her and, actually, against the odds, cheering her up a little.

Johnny was quiet for a moment, cradling his mug in his hands and watching the fire, and she sipped her drink, idly wondering where Remus was, what he was doing, if he had someone to talk to and if so, what he was saying.

She always had questions in quiet moments – they filled her head, whispering at first until there were so many they might as well be screaming. They ranged from the rather insignificant – what would he have had to eat, was it snowing where he was too? – to the rather more vital, thoughts about how he was coping, if he was miserable without her, if he was planning to accept the invitation Molly had sent, or if the same kind of thoughts _she_ had plagued him as well. She missed the certainty, she supposed, of knowing what he thought, where he was, what he was doing.

It was only natural, she supposed, but sometimes –

"Anyway," Johnny said, and Tonks looked up, remembering how that was the word he used every time he wanted to say something, and yet didn't know quite how to say it. She raised an eyebrow at him in question. "Just – I don't know. Does it sound odd to say I'm sorry it's turned out like this for you?"

"A bit," she said.

"Well I am," he said quickly.

Tonks smiled her thanks, not really knowing what else to do, and Johnny raised his mug to his lips, then seemed to change his mind, and let it drop back to the table. "It must be hard," he said, shifting in his seat, "with you loving him, and everything."

Tonks blinked, for a moment unable to do anything but regard Johnny across the table. He'd never been exactly astute when it came to emotions, and he'd only seen them together for what, ten minutes? "How do you..?"

"Kind of obvious," he said, gesturing to her hair. "You didn't even do that for me until I'd left and you found out about – " He gestured again, this time at nothing, and then shook his head a little and went on. "And even then you managed a dirty blonde."

"As did you, as I recall. That's what caused the trouble."

Johnny's jaw tensed, and Tonks sniggered, trying to let him know she wasn't serious, that, hurt as she'd been at the time, she didn't hold a grudge, because after all, if things had worked out for them, she wouldn't have met Remus at all.

"Oh very droll, Tonks, very droll," Johnny said dramatically, but looked a little impressed at her joke all the same. "I was about to say something nice to cheer you up."

"Sorry," she said. "Go on."

Johnny considered it for a moment, and then looked down, tracing the grain of the tabletop with his thumb. "I was going to say that obviously he adores you, so hopefully it'll work out."

"How do you – "

"You don't shoot Twiglets up someone's nose for just anyone, you know."

Tonks met Johnny's eye, but the look in them was so genuine that she couldn't continue, and so she studied the fire for a moment, thinking about how desperately she hoped he was right.

Of course she wanted to trust that what Remus felt for her was strong enough that a couple of months apart – this long, even – wouldn't fade it, but there were no guarantees, and the words that he'd said about people changing, falling out of love, haunted her.

She'd tried so desperately to be positive, to cling to the thought of what they had, but sometimes, she couldn't help it. Her thoughts floated away, getting bound up in the idea that she might have imagined it, that maybe the depth and breadth of her feelings had blinded her to the reality of Remus'.

She smiled at Johnny across the table. It was nice – more than nice – to hear someone else say that he adored her, although she stifled a laugh at the thought that she'd never imagined that Johnny would be the one to say it. "Why are you being so – "

"Cheerful and optimistic?" he offered.

"Well, yes."

Johnny shrugged a little, then met her eye with a smile. " 'Tis the season," he said.

They passed the rest of the night with comfortable chat, reminiscing about places they'd been and people they both knew, Johnny's band and how they were _this close_ to a record deal, and Tonks even managed to eat five mince pies, which she thought would at least have made Molly happy, even though it hardly constituted a more square meal than her two-wand-wave dinner would have done.

Johnny insisted on seeing her back to the Hog's Head, and she insisted that she'd only let him if he Flooed home from the bar, because he really always had been a lamentable dueller and with him having been such an unexpected source of comfort and distraction, she wasn't sure her conscience could take his sudden death on her account.

They stopped outside, and Johnny smiled down at her in that easy, cocksure way of his, snow settling in his hair and on his scarf. "This has been nice," he said.

"Yeah," she murmured. "It has."

"Better than last time," he said. "He really wedged those Twiglets in – I thought I was going to have to go to St Mungo's, but then Big Jim_Conjured_ some pliers and – "

Tonks laughed, then, when Johnny looked rather put out by her amusement, covered her mouth with her hand. "I would say I'm sorry," she said.

"But you're not?"

"No," she said, sniggering into her glove.

"Fair enough."

Johnny studied the snow beneath his feet, toeing at a spot of ice, the faint trace of that easy smile playing on his lips. "Thanks for tonight," Tonks said, touching his arm lightly. "I needed it, I think."

"Don't mention it."

He looked up, his smile broadened, and for a fleeting second, Tonks imagined reaching for his lapels and kissing him like she used to. It wasn't that she fancied him, that old flames had suddenly reignited, it was just the thought –

Since Remus had left, she'd felt empty, loneliness clawing its way inside her. Constantly, she'd ached with being alone, truly alone, in the sense that there was someone who should be there and wasn't, which she thought was infinitely worse than all the time she'd spent by herself, a different thing entirely. Then, on occasion, she'd been miserable as hell, but nothing, _nothing_ compared to this.

The idea that when Remus had left, he'd taken part of her with him, something she wouldn't get back until _he_ was back, gnawed at her. It wasn't even a romantic, comforting thought, because it didn't make her think that they were two halves of one soul, that they completed each other or any nonsense like that – it just made her ache. She wanted, just for a _second_, to forget all that, to be transported away, to maybe see if she could find that bit of herself she'd lost, if only for the briefest of moments.

She knew there wouldn't be fireworks, anything of the sort, because the day when any smile other than Remus' half-hitched one had caused those had long been consigned to history, but just to feel something else, to feel as if she was actually here –

Johnny brushed the snow from his hair and indicated the door, and as soon as the impulse to kiss him had flared, it dwindled again and Tonks hadn't the faintest idea what she'd been thinking.

She pushed the door open, gestured to Aberforth that it was all right, showed Johnny to the fireplace, and in a puff of green flame, he was gone.

Tonks sighed, suddenly realising how tired she was, and Aberforth raised an eyebrow at her from behind the bar, evidently expecting some salacious gossip, or for her to grin from ear to ear or something, whatever guests at the Hog's Head normally did when they bade goodnight to a gentleman caller. Unable to summon the enthusiasm to explain, Tonks muttered a goodnight in his general direction, and mounted the stairs, waving away the offer of a nightcap he called up after her.

Her room – number four – was cold and dark with the vague scent of straw and livestock, although all the rooms were, and at least this one had a nice view down the road towards the village. Tonks turned on the bedside lamp with a lazy wave of her wand, hanging her cloak over the back of the chair and turning her attention to the desk, where her copy of _The Evening Prophet _sat, waiting. She rubbed her arms against the chill, lit the fire, and sank down into the chair, eyes scanning the headlines for anything pertinent.

It was a ritual, of sorts, reading the paper before she turned in. It had started with idle curiosity, that she'd sit and check whether there had been reported werewolf activity, threats that had somehow made it into the gossip columns, anything that would give her an indication of what Remus was up to, if he was succeeding, if he was safe.

She knew it was ridiculous, that the paper could be very slow on the uptake, often missing stories entirely and being far too late with others for them even to deserve the title 'news', but she couldn't help it.

She knew it wasn't much, that most people would think it absurd that, tired as she was, she didn't just tumble into bed, but as she turned the page, newsprint and photos dancing in front of her eyes, she thought that no, it wasn't much, but it was all she had. She couldn't owl Remus, couldn't talk to him over the Floo or Apparate to see him to make sure he was OK, so this was what she had to make do with, a newspaper to read by lamplight, some connection between them that didn't even exist.

She'd tried to sleep without it, hadn't wanted to rely – but when she'd tried, she'd just lain there in the dark, however tired she thought she was, wondering what if – what if there was a story somewhere in there about him, what if he needed her, what if something had happened – something good, even, and she didn't know about it?

It was a way of closing the day, she thought – one more thing to tick off her list of things to do, along with the breakfast she didn't want to eat, the briefings she barely listened to, the fruitless patrols that yielded nothing.

She sighed, flicking through the headlines. _Goblins Say Poor Christmas Sales Bad For Business, Quidditch Star Caught With Robes Undone_ – nothing very interesting, but each story that _wasn't_ about Remus was a comfort.

There was no good news, no headline about Greyback being captured and a werewolf camp being disbanded, but no news either of the kind that she dreaded, and so Tonks climbed into bed thinking that whatever other ill things were afoot in their world, Remus was probably safe.

Her thoughts drifted over Christmas trees, mistletoe, the snow he liked so much, and, thinking of him, as she did every night, another little ritual, she finally fell asleep.

* * *

Tonks sat in the window, watching the snow. Her fingers toyed half-heartedly with one of her tiny silver robin earrings, which she'd donned out of habit, even though there wasn't anyone to see that she'd made an effort to be festive in spite of feeling anything but.

It had been snowing all day, gently covering the footprints she'd left as she'd patrolled at lunchtime, catching glimpses of the Hogsmeade residents pulling crackers, carving turkey, making merry, and as she looked out over the village from her room, she couldn't help feeling that the whole place had the look of a perfect Christmas Day. The houses were covered in thick, fluffy snow, the streets were quiet, and the stars were out in force in the crisp, midnight blue sky. Any other year, she thought, she'd be turning to whoever she was with and making mulled wine-inspired poetic comments about the scene being snow-capped perfection, laughing at herself and maybe insisting they go outside for a walk, a snowball fight, to make the most of it.

This year, though, she'd spent Christmas Day alone, unable to face the inquisition of her mother or Molly Weasley, the latter's darting concerned gaze, the former's suspicion about what on earth was going on. She'd thought it would be better like this, that she'd be able to almost forget it was Christmas, and yet that hadn't happened at all. The streets were silent – too silent for any other winter's day, and the soft seasonal rock and wizarding carols on the WWN really did give away what day it was, even if she hadn't seen Aberforth forcing his goats into paper hats and trying to encourage them to pull crackers with him.

She sighed, watching her breath fog the glass, and then ran her fingers over the knee of her pyjamas, wondering how she'd come to this, alone in her pyjamas at eight o'clock on Christmas Day. She almost regretted not accepting Molly's invitation –

Almost.

She'd declined for a myriad reasons – unable to face the thought of enforced cheerfulness for one, preferring not to have a Christmas that wasn't ideal for another, although all of her reasons were something to do with Remus, one way or another, and had been, even before Molly had told her he might be there.

She'd tried not to dwell on thoughts of him and what he was doing, whether he'd made it to The Burrow or not, what he might be doing instead, but as Christmas had drawn closer, she hadn't been able to avoid thinking about him, because Christmas itself seemed to do nothing but remind her. Her brain connected him to carols, pictured him humming one and walking away with his hands in his pockets, heard his voice in her head, making gentle mockery of the soft-rock Christmas songs. Even tinsel wasn't safe, because they'd hung it together last year, when they'd been on the very cusp of becoming what they had – he'd worn it like a feather boa and they'd talked about panto and flirted.

She _tried_ not to dwell, but did anyway, tried to picture what he looked like, even though she knew that the time they'd spent apart was unlikely to have been kind to him, that however she'd drifted away into some shadow of herself, he'd probably had things much tougher.

That was another reason she didn't wholly regret her decision not to join in the festivities at The Burrow. She'd been unsure to what extent she'd have been able to put a brave face on things, pretend to be the same old Tonks they knew and liked, and if Remus _was_ there –

Well, that was just a maelstrom of emotions she wasn't really up to facing – thoughts about how he'd react to seeing that she wasn't exactly unchanged by his absence, guilt that she couldn't hide it, thoughts of how _she'd_ cope seeing him, knowing it was a temporary reprieve.

Her gaze drifted around the room as she tried to think of something other than him, and eventually fell on the desk, where his gift sat. On any other day she might have chuckled about there being no escape from Remus J Lupin, but she didn't really have the energy.

And the gift –

She hadn't been able to resist it. She'd had the idea months ago, back when she'd kidded herself that he might only be gone for weeks, that by Christmas they'd be together and happy again and she wanted him to have something special. She'd made it herself, and it had been a distraction, another connection that didn't really exist, but all the same, every night that she'd worked on it, he'd felt a little bit closer.

It seemed a shame that it sat, untouched, on the desk, but –

It wasn't as if there was any other choice. She'd made her decision, hadn't she?

She rested her head back on the window, shivering a little at the chill of the glass on her temple, trying not to think about anything in particular, wishing she could drift off to sleep and have the day just be over with. Tomorrow would be better, she –

There was a creak outside the door, and Tonks looked up.

There was a knock, a soft rap of knuckles on wood, and her heart positively tried to bound out of her chest.

_Remus. _

She tried to tell herself that it wasn't – _couldn't _be – that there were a dozen more likely originators of that knock, and yet as she slid off the windowsill and dashed across the room to answer it, she didn't really believe it was anyone other than him.

She couldn't get the door open fast enough, and yet she almost didn't want to look, in case –

Remus stood in the doorway, a thin green scarf knotted at his throat, his overcoat pulled tight around him, half of his mouth hitching into an uncertain smile. "Remus?" she said, not really knowing why she'd said it when it blatantly was, and his smile widened and became a little bit more real.

"Hello," he said, his voice a shade more hoarse than she remembered. "I, erm – Molly – "

Remus rummaged in his pocket, pulled something out and tapped it with his wand, whereupon it became a plate with a foil-covered mound on top. "There's sandwiches," he said, "and Christmas cake. Maybe a mince pie or two if Arthur didn't steal the last of them."

Tonks smiled, not really listening to what he was saying, her heart hurtling and her brain just trying to keep up. Her eyes roved over him hungrily, trying to take in every detail at once. He looked – well, thinner than he had been, but that was to be expected, and a little paler, perhaps, his cheeks stained pink in places from the cold outside.

In spite of that, though, in spite of the way he was looking at her almost cautiously and standing on the threshold with a ridiculous plate of sandwiches, she –

Everything she'd thought about how hard it would be to see him dissolved, and in that instant, she felt something inside her soar, forget about tomorrow and the future and how hard it would be when he left again, and just –

He was here, and that was enough. Everything else didn't seem to matter anymore.

"Come in," she said, turning to the room and gesturing to it.

Remus cleared his throat and stepped inside, looking around with pleasant interest, and suddenly Tonks saw the place with new eyes, and wished she'd made more of an effort. Proudfoot had given her a poinsettia which now sat on the desk, and she'd got a small raft of cards from other employees at the Ministry, which she'd strung across the wall above the bed, but other than that, were it not for the picture postcard snow scene beyond the window, she thought it might as well have been July. "Sorry it's not more – "

She stalled, unable to think what the word was, and not really wanting to draw more attention to the lack of decoration than she already had. Remus smiled faintly, put the plate he was carrying down on the desk, and she watched as he pulled off his thin, black gloves, his scarf, and shoved them into his pocket.

Tonks wondered what to say.

Merlin, there'd been so much that she'd longed to tell him, all those times she'd turned to find him not there – why couldn't she think of something now? Should she tell him that she'd missed him? Wish him merry Christmas? Not say anything and just race towards him like the heroine in some kind of cheesy romance novel?

She fidgeted with the sleeve of her cardigan.

And she was in her _pyjamas_ –

Why oh why was she wearing those and a scratty cardigan?

Remus looked up, meeting her eye, that faint, unsure smile playing on his lips, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was doing here. "You should have come to the Burrow," he said, his voice a gentle reprimand, and Tonks winced a little, wondering if he was hurt that she hadn't gone. Had he expected her to be there? Was that why _he'd_ gone there?

"Maybe," she said, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "I just – I don't know. Couldn't face it."

"Because of me?"

His unsure smile turned sheepish, and Tonks rolled her eyes, suddenly feeling stupid for turning the invite down and wondering how many of her problems would have disappeared if she'd done something other than mope around here on her own. "Not just you," she said, shaking her head, because that was the last thing she wanted him to think. "It was – I'm not sure I'm up to people at the moment, and I'd just have made everyone miserable."

Remus considered her for a moment, his gaze softly searching her face. "I'd have stayed away if you'd asked," he said. "I probably should have – "

"No," she said quickly, and Remus met her eye, something boyish and hopeful about his expression that seemed a little lost and strange on his gaunt face. "I'm – " She cleared her throat against some emotion burbling in her chest and threatening to drown her. "I'm glad you're here."

Remus smiled a little more widely, eyes twinkling, and in an instant Tonks felt something she hadn't known had frozen inside her – or something between them, she couldn't tell which – start to melt. The atmosphere in the room changed, and she wasn't sure what had done it, but Merlin, she loved that it had. "There was a food fight," he said.

"What?"

"Over lunch," he said. "Percy showed up with Scrimgeour in tow for a word with Harry, and while they were in the garden – well, let's just say that some of the Weasleys have as fiery tempers as they do hair and that Percy running away from a hail of sprouts and shouting that this was hardly decorous behaviour is a memory I'll take to my grave."

Tonks raised her hand to her mouth and sniggered into her fingers, imagining the kind of scene that had unfolded. She'd have to pop in, she thought, ask Molly for the full story, or maybe wait for Arthur instead, since he'd be more likely to tell it without the note of disapproval in his voice.

"It was a shame you missed it," Remus added, and Tonks murmured some kind of reply, wondering if she should explain further, but not really wanting to dwell on why she hadn't been there.

Her eyes fell on the desk, and, more precisely, the gift, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than for him to have it. "I got you something," she said, crossing the room. "Well not got so much – it's nothing, really."

She picked the envelope up off the desk, fiddling with the corners for a second. She'd wanted to get something fancier, something with a little Christmas scene in the corner or a snowflake pattern or something, but in the end had had to settle for a plain brown one pilfered from the stationary cupboard at the Ministry. She'd intended to see if she could charm it –

But hadn't in the end, obviously. Tonks held it out to him, and Remus took it, looking at his name on the front rather quizzically. "I didn't – " he said. "I mean I haven't had chance – I haven't got you anything."

"Doesn't matter," she said, "I didn't expect anything. I just – "

She stopped, meeting his eye and offering him a smile she hoped was reassuring. Of course she hadn't expected that he'd get her anything – it wasn't as if she imagined 'werewolf camp' was code for 'secret collection of exclusive yet affordable boutiques', that while they sat around and plotted, the werewolves also made charming gifts that they sold to each other at reasonable prices. "Just – open it," she said. "Merry Christmas."

Remus' cheek twitched in the beginnings of a smile, and Tonks realised for the first time how close they were standing. He hadn't moved from the desk after he'd set the plate down, and in her enthusiasm to direct him to her gift, she'd raced over and was now only inches away.

Back in the summer, it wouldn't have been noteworthy – she'd barely even have registered something like that, but now, after so long apart, the fact that she could smell him, all clean and crisp and Remus-like, just as she remembered, and almost feel the presence of his body thrum the air, it was –

It was if it was last Christmas again, and just to be close to him, privy to the tiny details of him, was thoroughly intoxicating.

Tonks watched as Remus slid a long finger under the flap and slowly opened the envelope, and suddenly her stomach was alive with butterflies, her head full of thoughts about what if he didn't like it, what if it was too much, what if it –

"Oh Tonks," he said, his voice cracking.

Carefully – far more carefully than she'd put it in there, he extracted the Chocolate Frog card and turned it over, Sirius blinking up at him from the little window on the front.

It had taken her ages to find a suitable photo. There were a couple from the previous Christmas – one which she'd considered of him in a Santa hat, sporting it at a jaunty angle, clearly mouthing the words 'don't you dare take my picture, you bastard' and pointing menacingly at someone she assumed was Remus, but in the handful of photos taken at Grimmauld Place, he never looked quite himself, or how she always thought of him, at least. His smile was as elegant and dashing as she'd ever been informed it had been, but it never extended the whole way to his eyes, and she'd wanted something where he looked truly, truly happy.

She'd chanced upon the one she'd ended up using at her mum's, having called in after he'd died, just after Remus had left, to break the news and tell her that the Ministry was working on exonerating him. Her mother had taken the news as well as could be expected, and once the shock had worn off, she'd got out what she called the family albums, the small collection of pictures she'd saved of her family. There were a couple of Sirius at various ages, one of him on his first day at Hogwarts, looking impossibly at home in his uniform and swaggering a little, but Tonks had asked if she could have a copy of this one instead.

He was young in it, she thought, probably about seventeen, and laughing, his face bearing none of the harshness or lines it had later been marred by. He looked exactly as she'd imagined him from the stories she'd heard: impossibly handsome and very alive, his eyes dancing at some joke she'd never hear.

Remus stared and stared at the card in his hands, and Tonks' stomach twisted, what ifs circling and cawing. "We had a talk once," she said, shifting slightly from foot to foot. "He said it had always been his ambition to be on a Chocolate Frog card, so…"

Remus raised his hand to his mouth and covered it briefly, closing his eyes, pressing his fingers into his lips. For a moment, she thought she'd upset him, that this, without preface or warning, was too much, but when Remus opened his eyes again, there was a tiny glimmer of a smile in them. "Yes," he said. "He always did say he fully expected there to be a Marauders Collector Set one day."

Remus turned the card over slowly, reading what she'd written on the back. The wording had been the tricky thing – she'd toyed with something jokey, a parody of the dry language they used perhaps, but in the end nothing seemed right about that, and so she'd done it properly, listing his greatest achievements as she saw them, and then slipping a line about his fondness for fish finger, pea and tomato ketchup sandwiches in at the end.

Remus' gaze moved steadily over the text she'd charmed onto the card. "This is – I mean – this – " he said, his words falling away as he met her eye. "No-one has ever – this is the nicest – " He frowned a little, then that softened, and he smiled at his apparent lack of eloquence. "I'll treasure it," he said quietly. "He'd – he would have loved this. It must have taken you ages."

"Not really," she said."Besides, there's nothing much to do here when I'm not on duty, so…."

She trailed off, not really knowing what else to say, and Remus smiled with understanding. He looked back at the card – at the photo of Sirius – once more, and then slid it back into its envelope, and carefully tucked it into the left inside pocket of his overcoat. His fingers lingered for a moment there, gently pressing the card to his chest, and then he shifted closer, moving so slowly that at first Tonks wasn't entirely sure he was moving at all. "I love it," he said, meeting her eye, his gaze rather more intense than she remembered it.

Her insides held their breath and her stomach tensed, and she didn't want to move, do anything, in case it shattered the moment. It had been so long since she'd seen Remus in anything other than daydreams, she wanted to take every inch of him in, at once to reach out, run her fingers through his hair and see how accurately she had remembered it, pull him to her and see if she'd instantly recall how it felt, and to do nothing, to just stand and meet his eye and do nothing else forever.

It was a feeling not unlike the first couple of times she'd been alone with him, when she was constantly torn between action and not, between enjoying one moment and longing for another, different, further, more, when everything had been tentative and carefully weighed, each move balanced by caveats and caution in case –

Remus shifted closer, his eyes still on hers, so close that she could see all the different colours in them. "Thank you," he whispered, leaning in and kissing her gently on the cheek, lips lingering just a fraction longer than perhaps they should have, but for an eternity less than she'd have liked.

He raised his fingers to her face, softly tracing the curve of her cheek, and Tonks closed her eyes, pulse racing, trying to fathom through the cacophony of sensation and thought what to do. She settled for nestling a little closer to his fingers, and when her eyes flickered open again, Remus pulled away, although not very far, still so close that she could feel his breath on her face.

They just looked at each other. Tonks made no attempt to hide everything she felt, and Remus' expression was so honest and earnest, she didn't think he was hiding anything either.

For some reason, the word _yearning_ pounded in her head. Had she ever known what it meant before? Had he?

Whether he had or not, whether he'd felt it since he'd left, she could see it in his eyes, but his jaw tensed, and his gaze was almost fearful too as it switched between her eyes and her lips. She knew that somewhere beneath the surface a battle was raging, between what he wanted to do and what he thought he should, and she felt it too, because if they did anything more than this, would that make things worse?

She swallowed.

"I should go," Remus said, his voice rather breathy.

"Probably."

He didn't move, and Tonks realised that even as she'd uttered the word, she'd known he wasn't going to. Their eyes met again, and something, some acknowledgement of what they felt, fiery and desperate and utterly raw, crackled between them, and then, suddenly, his lips were on hers, her hands were in his hair, and they were pressed together, whatever battle that had been raging simultaneously won and lost.

His kiss was fierce, hers frantic, and as he pulled her closer she ran her hands all over him, shoulders, neck, chest, trying to reassure herself that he was real, that this was happening, that she hadn't fallen asleep with her head against the window and dreamt the whole thing. But the sensations, vivid and aching, were wonderfully reassuring. No dream had ever made her stomach surge and cave in quite such dramatic a fashion, and much as she'd tried to remember the catch of his teeth on her lips, how his breath tasted, the swirl of tension in her body and longing for more his kisses created, she'd never really done them justice. This was happening, really happening, and it felt amazing.

She ran her fingers through his hair – longer, she thought – over his neck and down, trying to memorise every inch. His lips on hers were too distracting, though, to build up a complete picture, everything happening so fast that it was a wonderful blur of hands and mouths and delicious sensations. It all felt so very, spectacularly familiar, and yet utterly new at the same time.

She slipped her hands inside his coat, into the warm pocket of air between him and it, sliding them up over his shoulders to free him of it, listening as it fell to the floor, then worked her fingers underneath his jumper, desperate to feel his skin as irrefutable proof that she wasn't lost in a dream. He gasped a little as her fingers roamed, and she remembered with a flutter how ticklish he was.

His lips left hers, trailing away across her jaw, down her neck, making her breath catch in her chest, and she pulled him closer, snaking her hands around his back, then up over his shoulders. His fingers echoed the movement of his lips on the other side of her neck, tracing the muscles with his thumb, then following the line of her collarbone as if he was fascinated by it. His lips pressed, hot and insistent, into her skin, all the places he knew she liked, and she turned her face, murmuring a moan into his hair.

His fingers moved lower, toying with her necklace momentarily, the pendant warm against the hollow of her throat, and when his lips returned to hers, his breath was ragged and she could hear it stalling.

Merlin, had she forgotten how good this felt, or been afraid to remember?

She kissed him with everything she had, closing her eyes and just trying to feel, to reassure him with the way she pressed against him, clung to him, that she was here and as real as he was. That was what this was, wasn't it? Some desperate search for proof that they, and what they had, existed? She could feel it in the way he kissed her, touched her, moved.

She worked his jumper up and off, letting it fall to the floor, and in response his fingers found the first button of her pyjamas and quickly undid it, his fingers shaking slightly as they did. His lips drew away, fastened on her skin as he uncovered it, kisses following as his fingers moved on to the next button and then the next and the next, until her pyjama top and that scratty cardigan he apparently didn't mind joined his jumper on the floor. His kisses on her skin were deliciously soft in spite of their insistence, and when they found her breasts, it was all too much and yet not nearly enough. Her fingers twisted in his hair, pulling his mouth back to hers, and she pressed closer, easing him back towards the bed, sinking down with him and covering his body with hers. He groaned, fingers tightening on her waist, then roaming over her back, dancing over her shoulders in intricate, searching patterns.

She kissed him hard, copied his movements on his chest, feeling every detail. He was thinner, she thought – too thin – but still hers, wonderfully hers, and at the thought she couldn't stand _this_ any longer, because wonderful as this moment was, she wanted the next, different, further, more – wanted _him_.

It was more than that, though, because she'd wanted him before, in a hundred different ways – for reassurance, for comfort, to show him how she felt, just because he was there making her weak at the knees with a look, but this was different, new. This ache in her stomach was more like need than want, a desire that went beyond desire and formed into something else entirely, something new, something that clutched for a thing she didn't even know the name for.

She fumbled with his belt. Normally, she'd have made a joke of it, playfully chastised him for his troublesome clothing, but as his fingers joined hers, scrabbling to get the thing undone, nothing had ever seemed less amusing. When they finally succeeded, shoved his clothing away, he rolled her onto her back, turning his attention to the drawstring on her pyjama bottoms, and once she was free of them, he met her gaze, longing burnt into every fleck in his eyes.

He leant in, kissed her deeply, and his hands were everywhere, as if he couldn't quite decide where to focus, wanted all of her at once. She couldn't help but echo the sentiment, wanting his mouth on hers but pulling away, kissing every bit of him she could reach – his neck, his shoulders, the side of his face. She'd thought that, if this happened, they'd take their time, discover each other anew by inches, but now –

She smoothed her hand down his stomach, feeling his muscles contract beneath her palm, heard him suck in his breath, then ventured lower, making him gasp. Her intention, she thought, was clear, and he shifted, body curving, his fingers tightening on her hip as he brought her closer. A tremor traversed her as he pressed into her, and she bit her lip against the expletive that formed on it, not wanting to say anything, do anything but feel, and his breath was unsteady, ragged on her neck as they both started to move. Her lips found his, and –

As kisses went, it was rather shambolic, nothing refined or teasing about it, heavy breath getting in the way of anything approaching finesse, but as he shifted his weight, intensified the sensation, she didn't care.

It was everything she'd missed. It was his arms around her and the way he murmured her name, the feel of his skin on hers, the glorious way his body seemed to read what hers wanted. As her fingers tightened in his hair and her lips moved across his, she seemed to feel everything at once, and yet a blissful kind of nothing as well: nothing but him, and her, and for the first time in a long time, she could remember what it was like to feel alive, to have all of herself present in one moment.

* * *

Tonks woke around midnight, the numbers on the clock blinking at her in the darkness. Her first thought was that she was warm, too warm to be at the Hog's Head, and then she felt the prickle of Remus' stubble on her shoulder as he dropped a kiss there, and placed the glorious warmth around her middle as the arms she'd missed so much.

Simultaneously, she wanted to laugh with relief that he was still there, and cry because whatever she said, whatever happened, he wouldn't always be, and for a second while the two urges waged a war inside, she pressed her eyes closed and tried not to move, not to let on that she was awake.

"Hey," he murmured, following his words with more soft kisses on her shoulder, her neck, her ear, and she shifted back against him as relief won out. After all, there'd be plenty of time later for everything else, and since he _was _here, she should at least try and make the most of it, shouldn't she? "Are you awake?"

"Am now," she murmured, and as he chuckled, his breath tickled her skin.

She turned in his arms, nestling against his chest, taking a deep breath to try and still the stirring butterflies in her stomach. She hadn't expected this, hadn't planned for it, and so she had no idea at all what might happen next.

His fingers smoothed her hair, then tickled her neck slightly, before settling back on her waist, warm and solid feeling. Merlin, she'd missed that, the way he touched her and made her feel real. "We should probably talk," he said, although his voice curved with something that sounded remarkably like playful reluctance at the thought.

"I don't want to," she said, sleepily petulant, and he let out an amused sigh that drifted over her forehead.

"Me either," he said, "but…."

His words faded away, and his hand dropped to the base of her spine, drew her a little closer.

Tonks swallowed, partly at the sensation, and partly because despite what she'd said, she delighted in the thought of talking to him. She hadn't really had anyone to confide in since he'd left, no one who knew her like he did, guessed half of what she was going to say before she'd even uttered a word. There was Molly if she was desperate, and occasionally she had been, but it wasn't the same – nowhere near, actually, to the way a single glance from Remus could set her mind at rest, or have it racing, whatever was needed.

Half of her wanted to tell him everything that had happened while he'd been away, to ask what he thought, get his opinion, see if she could make him laugh, and of course she wanted to know about him, how he was; the rest of her, though, wanted to postpone all of that for some unspecified later, to be left in peace to enjoy the feel of his body, to press him back against the mattress and show him just how much she'd missed him.

But, well, he was right, she thought. There were things that needed saying, and they'd need saying until they were said. "What's it been like?" she murmured, glancing up, watching as his mouth hitched into a dry smile.

"Do you really want to know?"

She inched closer, winding her arms around his waist and nestling in, nodding as she settled her head against his shoulder, hoping that he could feel that she really did want to know, whether it was good or bad. "It's not – well, it's not quite as we imagined," he said quietly. "We refer to it as _the_ camp, but in reality there are a series – it's almost tribal there – or feudal. The strongest do the best – they have the best territory, the land with shelter, and they recruit, offer protection, food they've stolen or killed as incentives, swell their numbers. Everyone wants to be a part of those groups, curry favour – rather be a small werewolf in a big pond than stand out, and that means they toe the line."

Remus sighed, and his fingers left her spine, drifted over her arm and up to her face. "It's been difficult," he said, shifting down on the pillow to meet her eye. "There's in-fighting, pecking orders – Greyback has an inner circle, plays people off against each other. It's not a matter of infiltrating one camp so much as trying to remain impartial and yet not offending, so that I can make headway across the board. I can't pretend I'm having a lot of luck."

"Do you think you will?"

"I don't know," he said, but even as he uttered the words, his head shook gently, as if his mind had already come to its conclusion, was just waiting for him to be ready to admit it.

Tonks closed her eyes. She'd hoped he'd be successful, not just for him, but so that all of this would have been for _something_. If she was honest, what she'd really hoped was that his first few months would have gone so well he wouldn't have to return, although she'd quickly learned that letting that kind of thinking in wasn't helpful when each day brought no such news. And yet she couldn't help but ask. "So you are – going back, then?"

She opened her eyes, and Remus peered at her through the darkness, puzzled and then concerned. "Of course," he said. "I thought you – I didn't mean to mislead – "

"You didn't," she said, smiling quickly. "I just – hoped, I suppose."

Remus' fingers tightened a little on her skin, and he smiled faintly, something she couldn't quite make out flickering in his eyes. "How are you?" he said softly, and when she met his eye in question, he added, "Molly's concerned."

Tonks sighed, wondering how on earth to answer the question. "Been busy," she said. "Worried."

Three words, she thought. It didn't really seem to do the situation, how she'd felt, justice, and yet it was the truth, because her situation was no more and no less than that, small and inadequate as the words sounded. "I didn't – " Remus' eyes found hers, every inch as concerned as Molly's had ever been, and faintly he traced shapes on her skin. "I don't want you to be," he said. "Worried, I mean."

"I can't help it," she said. "Anyone would be, wouldn't they? I mean you're away and it's dangerous, and there's no news for weeks on end, and then nothing very reliable. That's enough to make anyone fretful, isn't it?"

Remus fingered the ends of her hair again, his mouth softening into a gentle, coaxing smile. "It's more than that," he said quietly, "isn't it?"

His gaze shifted from her to the hair in his fingers and back again, rather pointed in its intent, and Tonks rolled her eyes. "Who told you?"

"Everyone," he said, smiling gently.

"Brilliant," she said. "Usually people are talking about me behind my back because my hair's green and they think I look ridiculous – I must be the only witch in Britain being gossiped about for looking normal."

The last words died a little on her lips, her voice cracking, and Remus smiled tightly, eyes dancing with concern for a moment as they roved her face. Tonks pressed her lips together against some flutter in her chest of indignation or apology, then tried to swallow it. She wanted to smile, laugh it off, say that she was sure she'd be back to normal as soon as spring came, that it was probably being here with the cold and the odd goat smell, which was enough to put anyone off, but somehow she couldn't say anything at all.

Remus' arms tightened around her, pulling her closer, settling her against his chest. "Has it happened before?" he said, and Tonks shook her head.

She wanted to tell him everything, that sometimes she'd been like this for days, but never for as long as this, that she'd always been able to change a little bit before – her eyes, her hair, something small. She wanted to tell him that she was scared, to confess that she didn't want to think about it in case the change was irreversible, longed to tell him that she didn't quite recognise whoever this person was who'd taken her place –

The sentences half-formed, but then her throat closed around them, and she couldn't get them out, and so she just snuggled closer, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping that she wouldn't cry. His grip tightened further still, and she took a shaky breath, trying to still her pounding heart.

A moment passed, and another followed, with nothing to accompany it but his breathing, soft and even on her ear. He held her tightly, pressing so close that she couldn't feel where his skin ended and hers began, and eventually she felt stiller, calmer, because he hadn't asked irritating questions about when and how she'd discovered that she couldn't, hadn't asked if she'd tried and how hard, and she knew that he wouldn't.

This was what she'd missed most of all while he was away, the way that, without fanfare, he understood. He didn't need to ask how she felt about it, because he knew. He wouldn't offer platitudes or reassurances, because he knew they wouldn't help, and so in the absence of all that, he was just there when she needed him. His hands moved over her back in large, soft circles, and after a moment she felt up to drawing away a bit, offering him a smile of thanks. "All right?" he said, scuffing her cheek with his thumb.

"Yeah," she said, hoping she sounded more convinced than she felt. "Just – takes a bit of getting used to, not being able to – you know."

Remus smiled softly, and she wondered what on earth he was thinking. Once upon a time, she'd asked him if it bothered him, the way she juggled appearances, if he minded never knowing quite what she'd look like. Now, she had exactly opposite concerns about how he'd feel if she was stuck like this forever. "I remember you telling me," he said, "that as a child you'd worried about running out of morphs, using them all up." She smiled at the thought that he'd remembered, and he smiled back, tracing the contours of her cheek with his fingertips. "Can't be easy," he continued, "coming face to face with something you feared."

Tonks looked away towards the window, loving his generosity, that he didn't think it was trivial or stupid, but marvelling a little that he thought of it in those terms all the same. She pressed her lips together in an attempt to steady herself before meeting his eye again. "It's not exactly up there with spying on someone like Greyback," she said quietly.

"Different, perhaps," he said, "but fear is fear, really, and courage is courage."

They were quiet for a moment that seemed to stretch and double, and Tonks wished she knew what to say. She wanted to tell him that she still hoped that she'd be back to her old self at some point, that she thought it was probably just all this getting to her, but his words lingered in the air, and she thought that's where she wanted to leave them, undisturbed, in case she needed to feel their presence again.

It wasn't the same at all, she thought, what he was doing, facing a man who'd wreaked so much havoc on his life and the lives of those he cared about, and her plodding along in her little colourless world, but at the thought that Remus thought her brave –

Her stomach tingled with something that felt like the faint glow of confidence, and suddenly she felt lighter, the thought that this was transient, just something she had to get through – and would get through – flitting through her mind. "Once," she said, "when I was training, I went grey for a week."

"Grey?"

"Everyone thought it was a joke, like I was making some point about how the process ages you or something – "

"You weren't?" he said, and Tonks shook her head.

"Just woke up one morning looking like that and I couldn't shift it," she said. "It's – "

She swallowed, wondering how to explain it when she didn't really understand it herself. That was the thing about being what she was, something so rare – the healers had theories about how it worked, how _she_ worked, but they didn't really know, and her whole life, she'd found the lack of answers disconcerting. They never had been able to tell her why she went a certain shade when she was angry, why certain colours just felt happy, why she'd get stuck in some drab palette whenever things felt too much.

Remus' fingers stilled on her skin, and he raised his eyebrows encouragingly. "It's like," she said quietly, hoping she'd be able to get the words out, "how I feel dictates how I can look, sometimes, and if I don't feel colourful then I can't look colourful. Does that make sense?"

"Perfectly," he said, smiling rather sadly. He hesitated for just a moment, and then looked down. "I'm sorry for the part I might have played in this."

"I wasn't blaming you – "

"I know," he said softly, mouth hitching into half a smile. "But I'm still sorry."

Tonks nodded, pressing her lips together for a second, then smiling back at him, touching his cheek and lifting his gaze back up to hers. She really didn't hold him accountable in the least, and yet it was nice that he'd said it. "It's not that important," she said quietly. "I mean other people have to put up with having one face their whole lives, don't they? I just wish I'd got stuck with something more – I don't know – glamorous, something nicer to look at."

She met Remus' eye tentatively, biting her lip, and for a second, Remus frowned, puzzled, before his eyes widened in realisation of what she was getting at. "Oh," he said, shifting closer, his fingers drifting back up to her hair. "I see." He smiled rather devilishly, making her insides dance as he watched her hair tumble through his fingers. "You're imagining that I don't fancy you any more, perhaps?"

Tonks bit back a giggle at his phrasing and the flirtatious look in his eyes rather unsuccessfully, and nodded. "Well," he said, inching closer, "on that score, I'd have thought actions spoke louder than words."

His lips were soft on hers, but didn't cause any less frantic a surge of reactions than something more overtly ardent would have, and she closed her eyes and revelled in the sensation of his fingers in her hair, the gentle press of his lips, which she confessed was a rather persuasive argument that what he felt hadn't changed. When he pulled away, she murmured a protest and, though he smiled, when he met her eye, his expression was rather serious. "I don't want to upset you," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "or force the issue, but – Harry told me something else, and it'd be remiss of me not to bring it up."

For a moment, Tonks hadn't any idea what he was talking about, and then, with a thump in her stomach, it all fell into place – the first day of term, when she'd dropped Harry off at school, and he'd seen –

She'd hoped he hadn't heard what Snape had said, wouldn't care about her Patronus, hadn't imagined that he'd –

"Although having said that," Remus murmured, "I haven't the faintest idea what to say about it."

Tonks sniggered slightly – nervous energy, she thought, as much as what he'd said, because she didn't have the faintest idea what to say about it either.

The first time she'd seen her new Patronus had been a couple of weeks after he'd left – she'd gone to send a message to Moody and there it had been on the carpet in her room, unmistakably changed, unmistakably a werewolf, unmistakably Remus.

It had panicked her quite a bit. She'd sent her message, then _Conjured_another one to check, hoping that her eyes had deceived her, that it was some kind of one-off because the memory she'd used had been of them, the morning after the full moon. She'd wondered if it would change back when she got used to the idea of Remus not being around, but it hadn't, and sometimes she was glad to see this reflection of Remus in her Patronus, and sometimes she wasn't, couldn't bear to look for all the things it brought up.

Remus caught her chin, gently tilting her face up to his, and Tonks almost didn't want to meet his eye, afraid of what his reaction might be because it was hardly an insignificant thing. She wanted to look away, but he smiled softly, and she found that she couldn't, too curious to see what he thought about the confession her magic had unwittingly made. "You don't have to say anything," he said, swallowing. "I just wanted you to know that – " He paused, shifted a little closer, his cheek twitching into half of a gloriously sincere smile. " – I miss you too."

Tonks closed her eyes as his words seemed to hover and shimmer in the air. At once she was glad that he didn't want explanations, didn't want her to lay herself bare, what she felt utterly exposed, and grateful that he understood what it meant, what it all meant, too.

She'd been so afraid that her feelings had clouded her judgement, that while she was sitting in the Hog's Head utterly bereft, with her colourless hair and some echo of him lingering in her magic, he was off becoming someone new, someone who wouldn't want her, need her, anymore. Until he'd said the words, she hadn't known how very desperately she needed to hear them.

But that was what he was good at, wasn't it? Part of why she loved him? She'd forgotten – or maybe it had been another of those things she'd been afraid to remember – how at ease he made her feel, how any problem dwindled at the sight of him, because he always knew exactly what to say and do to make her feel better, make her feel as if there was nothing she couldn't face.

She opened her eyes, smiling at him. "How much?" she whispered, although she hadn't intended to whisper it at all, had intended to be teasing, jovial. "How much have you missed me?"

For a moment Remus just met her eye, and then he grinned rather wickedly and rolled onto his back, taking her with him and settling her on his shoulder. His fingers played in her hair, and she thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he took a breath, letting it out slowly as something that wasn't quite a sigh. "There's a boy," he said, "at the camp – "

"You're not getting out of this with campfire stories."

Her voice was the light, teasing one she'd attempted a moment ago, and she wasn't sure quite why she'd managed it this time, but couldn't contain a smile about the fact that she had. Remus chuckled, squinting at her a little as he met her eye, and she wondered if they were sharing the same thought, that fleetingly, it had felt like he'd never been away. "His name's Isaiah," he said, apparently undeterred by her interruption and whatever thoughts he was having, "and we met soon after I arrived. He likes the stars."

Remus' fingers moved down over her shoulder, tugging the duvet a little higher around them. "He likes me to tell him stories about them, then he tells them to the other children – I think there's a girl he's trying to impress."

"It'll never work," she said, stifling a giggle. "The modern witch is totally immune to that kind of thing."

"That's what I told him," Remus added with a playfully weary sigh, "but you know the hopefulness of youth."

Tonks tittered into his chest, settling her hand on his stomach and tracing lazy circles, marvelling a little at how easily they'd fallen back into this, how in spite of the urgency that had overtaken them earlier, the seriousness of the conversations they'd had to have, this felt natural too. "One night," Remus continued, "he asked me why I kept looking at two stars in particular – Gemini – and so I told him it was because they were my favourites, always had been, but that these days they reminded me of a beautiful girl who let me show her the stars and it was the only way I had to feel close to her."

Tonks swallowed heavily, looking up at him almost tentatively. Had he done what she'd done? Looked for connections that barely existed, found comfort in them, tenuous and grasping as they were? "What did he say?"

"I think he was a bit disgusted, actually, at the thought that I might have a girlfriend," Remus said, frowning a little at the thought. "He gave me this look as if to say _really? At your age? _And then asked me to tell him about Medusa again because he thought he'd got some of the details wrong."

Remus looked down, met her eye, his twinkling with rather flirtatious amusement and something that went far beyond that, and her insides dissolved, even as she smiled at the rest of the story. She settled back on his chest, revelling in the warmth of his skin underneath her cheek, his heartbeat steadily pounding and reverberating through her. "I wish you could stay for longer," she said.

"I haven't told you how long I _am_ staying, yet," he replied, his voice lilting.

"No," she murmured, "but however long it is, it's not nearly long enough."

Tonks felt his fingers on her cheek, and looked up, and although he smiled, his eyes were deadly serious. "I know," he said.

"So when are you – "

"Couple of days," he said. "I should probably go back to The Burrow, although – " Remus smiled sheepishly, looking away towards the window, the crescent moon that peeked through the curtains. " – when Molly agreed to tell me where you were staying, she made me promise not to do anything that would make things worse," he said. "I think this," he added, gesturing to the bed, "probably qualifies. I wouldn't put it past her to chase me round the garden with a rolling pin."

Tonks bit back a grin at the thought, and as he looked back, flashing her a smile, she met his eye, desire curling inside her, from where they were touching right through. She shifted a little, kissed his shoulder slowly, lingering, letting her breath tickle his skin and delighting in the way she felt him tense slightly in anticipation. "Well if Molly's going to beat you to death," she said, making her way up to his neck, "I should probably make the visit worth your while."

Remus hummed some kind of agreement, and she shifted closer, teasing his skin with her tongue in a way she knew made him shiver. He sighed, low in his throat, which always made _her_ shiver, his fingers ghosting over her shoulder and drawing her closer still and yet not making any further movement, any real response. "Tonks," he said, his voice quiet, and she looked up, raising her eyebrow in question.

Remus swallowed, avoiding her gaze. "Has there – I mean have you considered – what I said before – " His eyes found hers again, and this time, they were utterly reluctant, hesitant, as if there was something he wanted to ask, in spite of having no desire to hear the answer. "Has there been – have you met someone else?"

"Remus – "

"That's what I want for you," he said, his fingers running through her hair as his eyes flickered over her features. She tried to make out the look in them – earnest, certainly, and yet torn, as if different parts of him wanted utterly different things. "I want you to meet someone – better, someone you wouldn't have to worry about, someone who can give you all the things I want for you."

"Funny," she said, "because when you asked the question, your eyes were saying something else entirely."

Remus smiled, half-heartedly rolled his eyes, his eyebrows twitching slightly in amusement. "Traitors," he muttered.

Tonks looked down, caught between the impulse to laugh at the genuinely irritated tone of his voice, his exasperation that his expression had betrayed him, and wanting to protest, loudly and vigorously, that he'd even ask. "I mean it," he said. "You deserve so much more – I thought that even before – "

"I don't want anybody else," she said. "Just you."

Remus opened his mouth to say something, and then whatever it was seemed to fall away, and he smiled. "You're still wearing it," he said.

"What?"

His eyes darted to the hollow of her throat, the fine silver chain and the teardrop-shaped pendant that she could make any colour of the rainbow, and more than that besides, nestled there against her skin. "Of course I am," she said, fingers rising to it instinctively, smoothing over the stone. "I haven't taken it off since the day you gave it to me."

"No?"

"No," she said, "and I never will."

Before he could say anything else, come up with some new argument about why she should find someone different, someone other, she leant in and pressed her lips to his.

She kissed him softly at first, tracing the outline of his features with the very tips of her fingers, and he responded with a kiss that made the butterflies in her stomach stir into life. His kiss was soft and slow and made every inch of her tingle, and she threaded her fingers into his hair, shifting closer, determined to feel every tiny curve of his lips, every whispered sensation, every murmur hummed against her skin.

This time, she thought, they'd take their time, discover each other anew by inches, because Remus was right: actions always did speak louder than words, and there were things they both needed to hear.

* * *

Tonks sat in the window, a half-eaten turkey and stuffing sandwich resting on her knee.

They hadn't said goodbye.

It was getting to be a habit, she thought, that he'd leave, and they wouldn't say goodbye, because neither of them wanted to believe that it was. He'd told her to take care, had kissed her softly, and whatever clever thing she'd meant to say had frozen in her throat, replaced by a murmured 'I love you' in the hope that that was all encompassing.

That part had been easy, she thought. It was the minutes that followed the door closing behind him that were tough, and all the minutes that had followed and would follow after that.

She'd kept busy – had watered the poinsettia, re-read all her Christmas cards and picked up her post from where Aberforth had shoved it under the door. Nothing too exacting, but just enough, she thought, to keep her mind off the image of Remus retreating through the snow.

This time it would be different, she thought.

This time, she knew that he missed her, and now, she could look up at the stars, and imagine what stories he was telling to his enraptured audience. Gemini – she knew how to pick them out because he'd shown her, and now, now she'd be able to look up at those stars, and imagine he was doing the same, thinking about her.

It was another one of those connections, tenuous, but there, and they all helped, she thought.

She looked out of the window. Snow had started to fall again, fast this time, a veritable storm rather than the odd flurry they'd grown accustomed to the past few days. Down below, one of the patrons scurried inside, swearing and slipping, and Tonks turned, the words 'look at the snow', some question about if Remus thought she might get tomorrow off teetering on her lips –

He wasn't there to hear them, of course.

Had she really expected him to be sitting in the chair, or on the edge of the bed?

Tonks sighed, resting her head against the glass, and watched the snow fall, the ghosts of Christmas past and Christmas present mingling and whirling in the air.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and to all of you for reading. 'Tis the season for festive review bribes, and accordingly, anyone leaving a word or two about this bumper edition gets a werewolf of their choosing to stash under their Christmas tree: Romantic Remus comes complete with candles and carols; Flirty Remus has mistletoe dangling in suggestive places; Shy Remus is replete in a jaunty Santa hat, and Sexy Remus sports nothing but a bow and big old smile, so be kind to him and watch the pine needles ;). **

** Merry Christmas, everybody :D. **


	23. The Soldier and The Spy

**A/N: Meant to have this up yesterday, but the site wouldn't play – hopefully being a day late won't matter too much. Anyway, this chapter's dedicated to Mrs Tater for being generally awesome, but also because way back through the mists of time, we had many very inspiring conversations about the ideas on which this chapter is based, and without them I think this section of the story would have looked a whole lot different. My Remus does slightly better than mouldy spuds, though ;).**

* * *

Tonks sat at the table, pressing her spine into the back of the chair just hard enough to hurt in an effort to stay awake. Her eyelids had decided a while ago that the meeting had been going on for far too long and started to droop, and the rest of her was beginning to agree more and more vociferously that a nap might be in order, right here on the Weasleys' kitchen table.

She pressed harder, wriggling a little in her seat for purchase, and looked up, trying to force herself to concentrate. Diggle was in the midst of his report, and so far it was proving every inch as riveting as Hestia's had been, which was to say not riveting in the slightest.

Tonks sighed. In truth, she'd never had much patience for meetings and the like, and she wasn't sure what Diggle's somnambulant meander through tales of the Dorset coastline had to do with her, how they would help or inform what she did in Hogsmeade. She was even _less_ sure why everyone had had to be subjected to Hestia's rambling about... whatever it was that she'd been rambling about. It had been something to do with Knockturn Alley, Tonks thought, although she hadn't been paying much attention, because right at the start Hestia had dropped her notes and giggled like a schoolgirl, and _that_ was when Tonks had started clock watching and drifting off into daydreams about –

Not that that was an entirely productive or helpful way to spend her time either, even if it was the rather more pleasant option.

She tried to avoid it as much as she could, drifting off into daydreams, but it was tricky when she didn't have anything concrete to focus on because thoughts of Remus were never very far away, so it wasn't as if her mind had to wander much to find him waiting. He was in little things these days, a cup of tea, a song on the WWN, even the weather as the skies lightened in preparation for spring. The memory of the three days they'd had together at Christmas didn't help, lingering as it did, although sometimes she thought it was the only thing that really kept her going, the thought of what they were, what they could be again. Three days – not nearly enough, but when they'd been in the middle of it, it had felt like its own little slice of eternity.

Tonks sighed again, wondering where Remus was. He was back at the camp, had been for weeks, but she hadn't heard from him, had no idea what he was doing, if things had changed, got better or worsened since he'd returned. She wondered if he was making headway, persuading the other werewolves of his ideas, his way of life, of all the things a werewolf could have if he was only lucky enough –

Not that she believed for a second it was luck that had won Remus the kind of things she imagined other werewolves might envy, even dream about – friends, people who trusted him, people who didn't think of him as anything other than Remus J Lupin. It was his own doing entirely, although she fancied that was how he put it to them, that he'd just been lucky enough to have chances and wonderful things had happened.

Sometimes she imagined him with the children, trying to gently persuade them that Greyback was wrong, that there was another way, that he'd lead by example, be kind and all the things Greyback wasn't, and that maybe that would be a start. She imagined that some of them would laugh at him for being optimistic and naive, but that maybe others would take his words to heart and the influence would spread. She'd seen from the way the children had reacted to him at Grimmauld that he was that sort of teacher – although there was every chance that thinking like that was hopefully naive too, or naively hopeful at best because the situation at the werewolf camp –

Well, the way he'd described it...

They'd talked about it quite a bit. Remus had told her that he wasn't at all certain he was any use at the camp, talked of indifference in some, others being too far gone, others too zealous in their belief in Greyback's ideas for him to make much of an impact. She hoped, more than anything, that things had changed, and part of it was selfish of course – if things were changing he might be able to leave, but the rest of it was something that she hoped for him. It had eaten away at him, she knew it had, that he wasn't being useful, that his efforts weren't working, and she knew only too well how destructive those thoughts could be, stuck as she was in Hogsmeade without plan or cause, really, without grand design to sink her teeth into and work towards.

Out of habit, Tonks' eyes darted to the window, taking in the weather that lay beyond the pane, assessing, even though she knew Remus was hundreds of miles away and in all likelihood experiencing vastly different conditions. There was frost on the edge of the window and she could just see the sparkle of it on the grass too, and even though the days had started to warm up a bit as February rolled on, the nights were still a reminder that winter hadn't released its grip just yet. She'd asked Remus about it, about the simple facts of how he was surviving, but he'd just said that he'd lived on wits and magic all his life – mostly magic since his wits were scattered and not really up to much, and that in truth it wasn't that much harder a winter than some he'd had in the past.

Tonks supposed he'd meant that to be a comfort, and with his crinkle-eyed smile and teasing tone it had been, at the time. But since he'd gone back, she'd just been left with this fist in her chest that tightened around her heart at the thought of how damn unfair his life had been, and the fact that he was used to things like hardship and cold weren't a comfort at all when she couldn't imagine a person who deserved them less. Of course she was glad that he was surviving, that he knew how to make do, could make a little go a long way, and seeing him in the flesh had certainly been a reassurance on that front, but still she couldn't claim that visions of him in the forest trying to find or catch food, thoughts of him living basically outside with no shelter and nowhere to take refuge from the elements were anything other than worrying.

Remus had told her _not_ to worry though, had made her promise to try, and so she let the thought go, just like she tried to let all such thoughts go, and looked away from the window and the frost and all associated musings back to Molly across the table, her hands screwed into a ball and a puzzled expression on her face as Diggle described irregular activity in Puncknowle.

At least Remus was probably spared these endless meetings Tonks thought, and almost smiled at the conjured image, how his mouth would have creased into a telling half-curve if she'd said that to him under her breath, how he would have then gone on to say something witty about finding Hestia's narrative style of report-giving refreshing, and that at least Dung hadn't shown up and tried to sell them something dodgy.

It was comforting, she supposed, to imagine how he'd react if he were there with her. If she did that, it was like he wasn't really endlessly gone at all, merely temporarily absent, and that was much more of a consolation than anything reality had to offer.

Tonks fidgeted a little, jiggling her foot against the leg of her chair. It had given up and gone to sleep, no doubt as enthralled as the rest of her was by Diggle's tale of potentially poisonous ice cream which had turned out merely to be off. She knocked her ankle against the wood, beating out the rhythm to the new Weird Sister's song she'd heard on the WWN that morning, trying to stave off the urge to Apparate back to the Hog's Head for a pint and a chat with Aberforth.

Not that it was anything to crow about that that was the best alternative her life had to offer these days, she supposed, sighing with a mixture of wry amusement at the thought and genuine weariness. What had it come to when the highlight of her day would be a pint of some kind of dubious-smelling amber liquid with a man who tried to keep her entertained with stories of what his goats had been up to? She'd even – it was embarrassing to admit it, really – gone to the effort of learning their names so she could keep up fully with their antics, and it pained her a little to think that she was genuinely curious to find out if Holly (the one with the brown ears) had made it through the crisp box she was always nibbling on, and how Marvin (the one with a permanently worried expression) was taking to his new diet of low-salt nuts, recommended by the animal healer for his abnormally high blood pressure.

Tonks reached for her mug and took a sip of her tea, even though it was long since past its best and now rather colder than stone, thinking that without the aid of some caffeine, she definitely would be snoring, and she wasn't sure Arthur would take kindly to her drooling on his furniture.

"And so that's when I took off in pursuit – "

Tonks closed her eyes for a moment in despair. It seemed Diggle was only now getting to the point of his report, and if the glazed expressions that bedecked the faces of everyone clustered around the table were anything to go by, she wasn't missing much by not paying attention.

The meetings were getting longer, she thought. When she'd first joined, everyone had been clipped, to the point – decisions had been made quickly and effectively, but now it seemed that everyone was so paranoid about missing something vital that they seemed to want to recount every single detail of everything they did, just in case. It had been this way since – well, since Sirius had died, then Emmeline, and not having a fixed headquarters had seemed to make things worse. They'd met at a variety of places, the Hog's Head sometimes, The Burrow at others, Hestia's place, even, had borne the brunt of them all traipsing Floo powder through its lounge on one quite memorable occasion, and Tonks had hoped that might help curtail things, that the unfamiliar surroundings would maybe make people be concise to keep the things brief, but so far the evidence suggested that was wishful thinking.

Not that things were going badly for the Order – in fact, Dumbledore seemed perfectly satisfied with the progress that was being made on a number of fronts, and always smiled out at the meetings with a rather unshakable kind of good-natured optimism that didn't seem to dwindle however long things dragged on. There'd been new enthusiasm too, riding on the back of the new year – soft rallying cries to each other not to give up hope, that this could well be the year that You-Know-Who and his lot disappeared forever.

Tonks smiled at the thought of the party they'd had on New Year's Eve in the Hog's Head – Mundungus Fletcher had brought a bottle of something even more dubious than usual and a load of knocked-off party streamers that went off at quarter to midnight instead of on the dot, and all the Order members who had nothing better to do had called in.

She'd had one other offer of something that might potentially have been construed as better – her parents had invited her to their traditional shindig, her mother eying her hair over the Floo and saying she was sure something could be done with it if that was the colour Tonks wanted to stay, and that not only was Derek the plumber with the roving hands going to be there, a young man named Richard was too, a friend of a friend of the family, a healer of some kind who would, she was sure, be to Tonks' liking, since he had fashionable features and a nice line in brogues. She'd turned that down though, unable to face all the questions about why she wasn't her usual self, unable to drum up the enthusiasm to fend off Derek and his wandering hands, even if it meant transfiguring bits of him into new and unusual vegetables. If she was honest, though, that was only part of the reason she'd stayed at the Hog's Head. She'd thought –

And it was stupid, really – beyond stupid, because how could he – that Remus might show up again, that he might have been able to get away so they could see in this year as they'd seen in the last. Looking back, she wasn't sure what she'd imagined – that the other werewolves might start the party early, get so drunk they all passed out and wouldn't notice if he slipped away – some foolish notion like that, perhaps, but whatever it was it had just left her to face the fact that Remus was gone and she was alone again with a renewed sense of –

She wasn't quite sure what it was. It had burbled in her chest, some mixture of something that felt like grief or longing, mixed in with a slow, aching sorrow, a sense that things just weren't right. Over the next couple of weeks, she'd allowed herself to drift off into countless, useless daydreams that ultimately did nothing but torment her, picture things that logically she knew weren't a possibility. She pictured him in the woods at this place she'd imagined was a bit like the camp he described, saw him sneaking off, coming up with some ruse to leave just so he could see her. He'd stroll into the bar of the Hog's Head, shoot her a look of amusement at her surprise across the bar, and then they'd go upstairs and –

Or he'd see her in the street on some patrol or other, catch her eye and smile. And she'd be so pleased to see him that the shops, the people, _everything_ would disappear as she raced towards him across the cobbles and –

There were a million of them, and for a while she saw his face everywhere, the flick of his coat around corners, thought she caught a glimpse of him off in the distance. At the time she'd felt as if she needed them to be real so badly that they must be, although she'd known too that it was just her brain playing a trick, trying to make the hope she'd felt at Christmas linger a little longer. There'd come a point, though where that seemed as out of place as if Christmas decorations were still loitering at The Burrow even though twelfth night was a dim and faded memory.

That was when Tonks had decided that she had to face reality. He was a spy and she was a soldier, and moping about it wasn't going to change that or make things easier to bear. She'd decided that she just had to accept the unsettling but achingly true fact that she had no idea when she'd see him again and just try and get on with her life in the meantime.

It had only been a couple of weeks, but she was doing all right. If all right meant making small talk about goats, drinking slightly too much and allowing herself to drift off in meetings, she thought.

"Thank you, Dedalus," Dumbledore said. "And that brings us rather neatly to the werewolves."

Tonks jolted, hoping she hadn't been too obviously lost in her thoughts and now too obviously not. She looked up, suddenly feeling wide awake, gaze passing from face to face, trying to discern what was neat about that, if there was some piece of the puzzle she might have missed. Mentally, she kicked herself for not paying attention. Night after night she scanned the paper for any snippet of gossip, any whiff of something in which Remus might be involved, any hint as to what he was up to, and here she was, too lost in her stupid thoughts to hear something that might actually be important.

Dumbledore tucked his injured hand into the sleeve of his robes and nodded to Moody, who got to his feet and paced near the stove. Molly's gaze followed him, Arthur's too, as if they were worried he might at any second attack the kettle for looking at him funny. It was probably a not invalid concern – one of the reasons they were meeting here was that he'd taken a dislike to a lamp at Hestia's place an blasted it into a million tiny, multicoloured fragments, believing it to have been bugged.

"Now," Moody barked, and Tonks felt Arthur at her side tense a little, as if he really did think some kitchen implement was about to get it, "we haven't had a great deal of intelligence to go on recently, but something's come up. We – Dumbledore and I – have heard that Matilda Montgomery – "

"The Obliviator?" Arthur said, leaning forward, apparently no-longer concerned about his kitchenware.

" – has been threatened. Hasn't said anything herself, of course – can't, more than likely or doesn't know who she'd speak to if she could, but the source is reliable. Thinking is that the Death Eaters have it in their minds she knows something she shouldn't, and either she takes her oath seriously and won't tell them what they want to know, or she doesn't know a damn thing, and they've got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time."

"And they've threatened her?" Diggle said.

"If only it were that simple," Dumbledore said, smiling faintly and without a hint of amusement. "Matilda Montgomery is a very capable witch – gifted in transfiguration, as I'm sure Minerva would testify, and charms and defensive magic no less so. Our concern is not for her."

"Then – "

"She has three children," Dumbledore said. "Two of them are currently at Hogwarts and perfectly safe – the other, alas, is too young, and we believe it is this child who will be targeted. His name is Thomas."

An uneasy quiet passed around the table, and Tonks wondered if everyone else was thinking what she was, that there was only one way this could possibly be connected to werewolves. Her heart thundered. Merlin, she hoped she was wrong. "I daresay," Dumbledore added, his eyes meeting Tonks', "that some of you have already made the unfortunate connection."

Tonks swallowed, almost not wanting to give voice to her thoughts in the irrational belief that that would stop them from being correct. "The Death Eaters have threatened that werewolves will attack her son if she doesn't co-operate?" she said, looking from Dumbledore to Moody, hoping one of them would tell her she had werewolves on the brain and it wasn't that at all.

"It is to her immense credit," Dumbledore said, "that she has not found it a persuasive argument."

A vague nod traversed the table like a shiver, and Tonks stared at her hands, a sick feeling whirling in her stomach. This was exactly why Remus was where he was, wasn't it? To stop this kind of thing, the kind of thing that had happened to him happening to someone else? "What are we going to do?" she said. "Keep an eye on them, try and stop Greyback – it is Greyback, I take it?" Dumbledore nodded. "I mean we could maybe send them into hiding – "

"I fear Mrs Montgomery will not consent to that, will not bow to the threat."

"Oh, so – "

"That poor woman – "

"We all knew they might – "

"She must be out of her mind with – "

"We need a volunteer," Moody said, cutting everyone off as they spoke at once. "Lupin's on the inside – he should know what's going on and we can't risk sending a message in case he's not in a position to receive it. Might be able to put a stop to things his end, or see if he knows when and how they plan to attack, and – "

"I'll go."

The words were out of her mouth without a second thought, and as all eyes fixed on Tonks, she flushed, wondering if she hadn't spoken rather too hastily, given too much away. Cautiously, she looked from face to face. Molly's eyebrows were impossible high on her forehead, disappearing behind her hair, Arthur's gaze was understanding if a little fraught, and Hestia, Diggle and some of the others looked a bit puzzled, presumably trying to figure out why anyone would be so keen to be that close to so many werewolves. Snape, meanwhile, leant forward, peering at her down the table, eyes narrowed in something that looked like consideration and irritation, although Tonks couldn't really fathom why he'd care.

She met Dumbledore's eye, then Moody's, hoping that they didn't see her actions as some kind of misplaced romantic gesture, because that's not how she'd meant it. Of course she wanted to see Remus, but – it was more than that. If anyone should go, she should, shouldn't she?

When she'd first talked about it with Remus, about what had happened to him, she'd baulked at how young he'd been, horrified that anyone would inflict becoming a werewolf on a child who hadn't had time to do anything to anyone as retribution for something their parents had done. She'd imagined, at the time, that Remus had been something of a one-off, that Greyback had perhaps been driven mad with grief – but over time it had become clearer and clearer that that wasn't the case, and that now it seemed he was willing to do the same to order to curry favour, and there was some fresh horror in that. If she could play a part in stopping him, then she had to, didn't she? At least if she did this, she was useful.

"Tonks, really I think someone less involved –" Molly said.

"I'm the logical choice, Molly," Tonks said, trying to offer her a kind but firm smile across the table. "It should be someone with auror training, shouldn't it, in case they get spotted, in case there are Death Eaters at the camp? Kingsley can hardly leave his post without arousing suspicion, and – no offence, Mad-Eye, but you don't exactly blend in, so that leaves me, doesn't it?"

Diggle made a quiet noise of approval, but out of the corner of her eye, Tonks saw Snape's upper lip curl as he leant even further forward, clasping his hands together on the table. "It will not be an easy task. Are you sure you're up to it, Nymphadora, in your current state?" he said, his eyes fixing on her hair. Tonks pressed her lips together, torn between glowering at him and rolling her eyes, and Molly bristled in her seat. "Forgive me for bringing it up," Snape continued, drawling as if he'd never been less sorry about anything, "but this is hardly an insignificant matter. I would hate to see good intelligence go to waste just because the person tasked with delivering it had their mind on _other things_."

"If we're using hair as an indicator of if someone's fit for duty," Tonks said, "I really don't think you're in a position to cast aspersions."

Someone, although Tonks couldn't tell who, snorted a brief laugh, and Snape's glare intensified for a second. "I'm merely trying to establish," he said, "that the life of a child will not take second place to – anything else."

"Maybe _you_ want to go then?" Tonks said, and Snape looked away, his fingers whitening as he pressed them more tightly together. "Thought not," she added, under her breath. "Just because I'm not prancing around the place making my hair all the colours of the rainbow doesn't mean I'm not up to it – so unless anyone else has got any objections?"

There was a brief and rather uncomfortable silence, everyone shrinking a little away from Tonks as she looked at them, and then Mad-Eye cleared his throat. "That's settled, then. And Tonks is right – something like this needs the touch of someone with the proper amount of training. Messengers get shot all the time, and at least this way, we know it's some who'll take a couple of the bastards with them."

Tonks smiled at Mad-Eye in thanks for his – admittedly rather depressingly phrased – show of support, and then settled back in her seat. "Alastor will provide you with the details after the meeting," Dumbledore said, "Now, Severus, I believe you had something else to share with us?"

* * *

The rest of the meeting dragged and dragged, the passage of time seeming to redouble its efforts to go as slowly as possible just to torment her, but eventually Dumbledore drew things to a close, bid them all a pleasant week and left, saying that he wished he had the time to stay for a slice of lemon drizzle cake, but alas had somewhere else to be.

Tonks leant on the table and waited. She was sure from the way Molly kept eying her with concern as she handed out tea and plates that she had something to say, and she wasn't entirely sure Snape had got all of his jibes off his chest either. Of all the people who could have seen her new patronus –

"Brave of you to volunteer."

Tonks looked up to find Mad-Eye's good eye drifting over her appraisingly, while his magical one span round towards the door, as if he was checking for someone listening at the keyhole, lurking outside. "Not really," she said, shrugging a little. "It's like I said, isn't it? It needs an auror and I'm the only one who's free."

"Sure?" he said, his voice gruff and almost accusatory. Tonks had come to associate that tone with him wanting to show concern, and yet not knowing quite how; he'd said the same thing to her when she'd put in for her final exams – that exact same tone, as if he half-hoped his gruffness would put her off for her own good.

"You know me," Tonks said, giving him the same answer she'd given him then, "ready for anything."

Mad-Eye's mouth twisted into a smile, or some approximation of one, and he hesitated for just a moment before going on. "Wouldn't normally ask," he said, "but as you've been – well – under the circumstances – " His non-magical eye roamed her face, skirting her fringe as if he wished he could see through her skull the way he could doors and that way discover her thoughts. "None of my business," he said, "but lass, if you wanted to change your mind – "

"I don't."

"Molly was right, you know," he said. "Won't be easy, seeing him, knowing what he's up against."

"I know," Tonks said, "but I don't think the reality can be worse than what I've been imagining."

"That's true enough. Smart thinking, that, wanting to deal with reality, horrible as it might be, rather than what goes on inside these things," Mad-Eye said, tapping his temple lightly with a gnarled finger. "Worse than your worst enemy, your own thoughts can be. Always better to know –"

" – what's really to be dealt with than to let your imagination fill in the blanks," Tonks added, smiling up at him. Mad-Eye nodded, his gaze softening a little in approval, even though he kept his magical eye firmly fixed on the door. "Where am I off to, then?" she said. "Remus said the borders, but that's a lot of ground. I figured you've got something more specific?"

Mad-Eye fumbled in his pocket, eventually drawing out a blank piece of paper. "Location's here," he said, blowing on the scrap of parchment until the map co-ordinates appeared. "Memorise them."

Tonks nodded, taking the digits in one by one, committing them to memory, then handed the paper back to Moody, who quickly incinerated it. "That's a safe location to Apparate to – lots of cover, no-one's ever been spotted within a quarter of a mile and I've left the usual precautions, but don't drop your guard. Camp's a mile or so west – best to approach it from the south if you can, through the woods. Lupin tends to be on the fringes, so you might spot him straight away –"

"You've been there?"

"Once or twice," Mad-Eye said. "S'a miserable place. Think there might be dementors nearby. Either that, or there's some kind of lingering mould spell on the place..."

Tonks frowned in distaste at the idea, and Mad-Eye cleared his throat. "Anyhow," he said, "if he's not immediately apparent, he makes a round of the camp at dusk. He'll pause on the edges of the forest opposite the mouth of the first cave in case of the need for contact – so you can nip in deeper for cover if you need to. The werewolves have mostly spurned magic – least, that's what Greyback's told them. Hippogriff dung, that, of course – he's got the place bugged, but Lupin knows what to do so you won't be overheard. Watch out for the boundary charms – nothing nasty so far, but you never know – a detector spell's a good idea – always better –"

" – forewarned than accidentally decapitated," Tonks said, rolling her eyes. "I know the drill, Mad-Eye."

"And I know you know," he returned, magical eye swivelling onto her to join the other in its glower, "but the heart's a foolish organ and it can make your brain forget all kinds of things it used to know as well as your name, and you – "

"Must be careful," she said. "I'll be more than constantly vigilant."

"You better. Full moon's – "

"Two weeks away – "

"And you'll need to –"

"Be inconspicuous. Nothing more important in a time of war than protecting a spy."

"Merlin girl, can an old man not get a sentence finished anymore?" he said, bristling, and Tonks grinned.

"Carry on," she said, stifling a laugh and miming buttoning her lip.

"Anyway," Mad-Eye said, "as I was saying. Full moon's a fortnight away, but we don't know when this attack's planned for, coming moon or the next. They might try and use this one for a last ditch attempt – threat but no action – they're not likely to want the publicity of attacking a Ministry employee's family if they don't absolutely have to, but that's Death Eater thinking and Greyback's a loose cannon. It's best if you get Lupin the intel as fast as you can, and see what he knows. Might be wise to set up a rendezvous for just before the moon to see if he's anything new to report, but that's up to your discretion when you've seen the lay of the land. You and Lupin's that is – you're inside, so it's your call, that's the way it goes."

"Permission to speak?" Tonks said, and Mad-Eye's jaw tightened. "I'll keep the details to myself, of course," she said, lowering her voice, glancing around the room and at Snape in particular, "but I don't see as I'll have a problem getting in before the end of the week."

"Good. Standard debrief protocols when you get back."

Tonks nodded, and Mad-Eye gave her one last appraising look before going over to join Arthur in a discussion about what the Ministry might do next and the contents of a couple of memos Arthur had managed to pilfer. Tonks sat on the table, watched as Snape wished Molly goodbye, telling her that her cake had been 'most adequate' before sweeping out, glowering in her direction, and for a moment she wondered about just slipping out quietly and going to join Aberforth for that drink.

No such luck, though. Spotting that she was alone, Molly dashed over, and within seconds Tonks had a plate with a large slab of lemon drizzle cake on it in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, Molly making frantic gestures that she should eat. Tonks obliging took a mouthful of cake, wondering what on earth Molly would say. She appreciated the concern, and Molly had been a good friend these last few months, but –

"How are you, dear?" she said, with a look that said there were about a million other questions she wanted to ask more, and that this was just the opening gambit.

"You know," Tonks said, "good enough. Better now I've got cake. You'll have to give me the recipe, even though I'll probably blow it up – "

Tonks tried a winning smile, but Molly's expression said she wasn't going to be distracted by small talk, even that which pertained to advice on baking. "Now, about this – mission," she said. "Are you quite sure that you're the person for the job? No-one would think any the less of you if you decided not to go through with it."

"Wouldn't they?" Tonks said. "You heard Snape – I'm sure half the people here were thinking what he was, he's just the only with the b– " Molly's eyes widened. " – I mean guts – to say it."

"Yes, well, Professor Snape is rather a law unto himself," she said, "but I don't think anyone else – "

"They're werewolves, Molly," Tonks said quietly. "No-one else would have volunteered. No-one else will if I don't go – and this is too important."

Molly's face creased in a frown as if she knew Tonks was right, and yet didn't want to admit it because that would be admitting something else too. "It's just – you've seemed so much perkier these last few weeks, and I'd hate to see you – take a step backwards."

"I'm much better," Tonks said. "It was just hard at first – "

"And you don't think seeing him again – "

"I'll be fine, Molly," she said. "I promise."

Tonks took a bite of her lemon drizzle cake in what she thought was a convincing fashion, and hoped that she was right.

* * *

Tonks stumbled a little on a knot of grass as she Apparated, the ground rising up to meet her feet, her knees protesting at the impact. The place was deserted, just as Moody had described, a cluster of trees with bare black branches to one side, the rolling countryside stretching out on the other. Off in the distance was a low wooded hill, clouds tumbling across the sky above it, and as she stood there, checking her surroundings meticulously for anyone who might have seen her, the wind raced by and seared her ears.

She looked down. As she'd expected a faint red mist, barely perceptible, gathered around her feet, and in response her fingers tightened compulsively on her wand, a strand of mousy hair flapping in her face. "Nymphadora Tonks," she said quietly. "Auror and general liability, not a Death Eater by any stretch of the imagination, so you can bugger off."

The mist did as it was told, disintegrating before her eyes, dispersing apparently on the wind at the sound of her voice, and she stepped aside for a minute and waited to see if she'd been followed. She'd always half-wondered what this trap of Mad-Eye's was, had always been a bit disappointed that when she asked him about it, his only answer was that she wanted to hope she never found out. She'd always half-wanted to be followed, just to see what cruel fate awaited anyone trying to Apparate into a spot Mad-Eye had designated safe for those who he'd sanction, but on this occasion she was quite glad to be alone. She had enough to think about without that too.

"Right," she said to no-one in particular as she looked around, trying to get her bearings. She held her wand flat on the palm of her hand, watched as it span to indicate which way was north, and that settled, she nodded at it in thanks, and set off for the trees that lay to the west.

Tonks knew more or less where she was. She'd looked the coordinates Mad-Eye had given her up on a map to find that she was just a couple of miles north of the nearest town, some place called Hawick, which she really hoped was information she wouldn't need. There was a scattering of Muggle towns to the east along the major roads, and apparently a couple of wizards who ran a bakery in Peebles, but other than that the area was rather barren. Apart, of course, from the dozens of werewolves roaming the countryside.

She'd had two days to come up with a plan, two days until her schedule of auror duties lined up with a prospective prolonged absence. She hadn't wanted to arouse suspicion (not that either Proudfoot or Savage were especially quick of the mark, but still) by turning up late for anything, and so she'd waited for today, when she had the early morning patrol, with nothing else scheduled until the following evening. She'd thought that that would be enough time to get everything including a proper debrief done, had casually mentioned in passing to Dawlish that she might make use of the time between shifts to go and visit her parents, which had barely earned her a raise of his eyebrows and a sniff to recognise that she'd said anything at all.

Proudfoot had been slightly more interested, eyeing her hair and saying she could probably do with the break, that they all could, and with her cover-story firmly in place, Tonks had turned her attention to wondering how on earth Remus would take the news that a werewolf attack on a child seemed imminent, and that he was potentially the only thing that stood in the way of it happening.

She'd told herself over and over that this was why Remus had accepted the mission, that he'd thought that the chance to spare one child the pain of what had happened to him, the lasting damage, was enough to justify whatever hardships he'd had to endure, but she had no idea how the reality of the thing would play out. After all, she'd joined the Order, become an auror so that other people didn't have to worry, that her children and their children wouldn't have to look over their shoulders constantly and could live in peace –

But she'd hardly envisaged where those decisions would lead her, what bearing that burden would cost.

The trees on the edge of the forest were pine, a thin line of them right around the perimeter, as if it had been designed like a permanent border that even winter couldn't penetrate. Tonks looked up at the sky, cold and quite foreboding above, threatening rain – or more likely, given the temperature, snow – the clouds rolling across the sky as if they were trying to beat her to her destination. She hoped she'd have enough time. The sun would be setting around five, and so she needed to be in place by four at the latest, with no idea how long it would take her to find the camp, or what would await her when she did. The way Remus had described it –

She had a picture in her head of a society built on all the things a society shouldn't be built on – fear and distrust and unfair hierarchies, as if the werewolf camp was some microcosm of what the Death Eaters wanted to do to their whole world, just so they could be at the top of the pile. It made her feel vaguely queasy just to think about it, and so Tonks tried to push it to the back of her mind, and pressed on through the trees.

The ground beneath her feet was solid, hardened by the cold but didn't crinkle with frost, only the crunch of dead leaves to accompany her foot falls. She'd always felt quite at home in the woods, especially the Forbidden Forest, where she and Steph had snuck on many occasions to do nothing more exciting than eat pilfered food and talk about the boys they liked. They'd crept through the trees to one of the closer clearings feeling impossibly rebellious, as if each handful of crisps or word about Charlie Weasley was an act of wonderful impropriety. Everything had felt like an adventure in those days. She'd never really heeded the tales of the dangerous creatures that lay within the undergrowth, listened to the teachers' warnings about werewolves and the other things rumoured to have made the place their home, and suddenly she wondered why. Had she not believed them, thought they were simple scare stories to keep them away from something fun? Or had she relished the idea of coming face to face with something monstrous, just to see if she could take it, rise to the challenge? Maybe she hadn't thought about it at all, the drive of crisps and boys she liked and rebellion under comforting beech trees the only thoughts in her head.

It was a slightly different matter these days, she thought, knowing that the werewolves in this forest definitely weren't a myth. This forest differed too in appearance – the pine mingled with oak and some other tall, spindly trees she didn't know the name of to make an interesting canopy of bare, stark branches bereft of their leaves and thick, brush-like green. In other circumstances she thought she might well have enjoyed a walk here, enjoying the smell of the decaying leaves and the way they danced along in the gust at her feet. There was bracken woven with blackberry bushes too, and she tried to resist the urge to imagine a picnic here in warmer weather, her fingers stained purple and Remus on a tartan blanket, making her laugh and mocking her gently for her enthusiasm for wild berries.

It was a year since –

She wondered if Remus would remember, would even have found a way to keep track of time here, would know what the date was, that a year ago they'd sat under the stars in the cold and eaten the least conventional picnic she'd ever heard of.

It felt like yesterday. She didn't even have to close her eyes to picture the touch of his lips to hers, the way she'd felt when she'd seen the lengths he'd gone to for her, the gurgle of nerves and excitement in her stomach as they'd talked.

Would they ever be able to go back, she wondered? When their worlds were so – extraordinary, when they'd been sucked for so long into the maelstrom of war, would they ever be able to go back and just do normal things?

She sighed, reminding herself that it had been her new year's resolution (made on the stroke of a quarter to midnight as the streamers went off, in what she fancied was a pleasingly non-traditional fashion) to be less melancholy, not to wonder and worry about things that would in all likelihood never be an issue, especially when she had more clear and present dangers in her immediate vicinity.

_Focus_.

Tonks checked her watch. It was almost three, and so she picked up the pace a little, getting the hem of her coat caught on a bramble that snaked through the undergrowth, and swearing under her breath as she freed it. She'd always been at home in the woods, but that didn't mean she was an expert in traversing them.

The trees grew thicker, closer together, the bracken that wound between them denser as she made her way further into the forest, constantly alert for any sounds of on-comers. She'd planned to Disillusion, but then had come off her patrol to find Mad-Eye's invisibility cloak nestling on her bed at the Hog's Head, and so instead she thought she'd don that when she got too close to be able to claim she was a lost tourist. She hadn't really mapped out the details of what she would do after that – there were too many variables to formulate anything, and she'd require different plans according to what she was faced with. She'd run through a couple of scenarios, a couple of ideas, but ultimately she didn't mind making things up as she went along. She found it the best way in a situation like this, keep things flexible, adapt to her surroundings, deal with things as and when they presented themselves.

Tonks kept her wand firmly gripped in her fingers, casting detection charms every couple of meters and sending them out in front of her, where they raced across the ground and highlighted any magic. She'd expected boundary spells when she approached the camp, perhaps some kind of alarm charm, although so far there hadn't been anything or anyone. Remus had said that the werewolves didn't stray far from the camp if they could help it, that Greyback and his inner circle had filled their heads with stories about Muggle gangs, lynch mobs, who would beat them to death on sight, that it was another way Greyback controlled them, making sure they stayed within the confines, within his control. She wasn't surprised that it worked.

She wondered what the other werewolves made of Remus, who was full of stories, but of such a different kind –

In the distance she heard a faint shout and froze, wincing as a twig snapped beneath her foot. She listened intently over the pounding of her heart – it was a call to someone she couldn't quite make out the words of, although it sounded friendly enough, if a little on the brusque side.

Tonks swallowed, then carefully drew Moody's invisibility cloak out of her pocket and draped it around her shoulders, pulling up the hood and looking down, making sure she was completely covered. She'd debated whether this would be easier than Disillusioning – better cover, certainly, although she'd wondered whether the amount of time she spent detaching it from tree bark and stray twigs as it snagged – as inevitably it would under her stewardship – would make it worth it. In the end she'd decided to bring it, better cover winning out over the idea of fast progress because after all, she hoped she wouldn't need to make a swift escape at any point, and if she did, snagged invisibility cloaks would really be the least of her worries.

She craned her neck. The shout hadn't been too close, carried on the wind a little, probably, but she must be drawing near to the camp. She cast another detection spell just in case, then took a step, her insides twitching with adrenaline and her blood loud in her veins, alert but trying to stay calm at the same time.

She pressed on through the thicket with a little more caution, careful where she placed her feet and mindful of the billowing cloak draped around her, trying not to let it snag. After a moment the trees started to thin, the canopy sparser overhead, and there were more sounds, some activity up ahead – no voices, but the gentle thrum of life in the air.

Tonks checked her watch. She must be close, but if Remus made a round of the camp at dusk, she didn't have long and couldn't afford to miss him. Her chest tightened at the thought in a way that wasn't entirely to do with getting past boundary spells and weaving her way undetected through the camp to find him. Fleetingly, she wondered how she'd feel when she _did_ see him. She'd tried to picture it, him in a place like this, but it seemed such a bad fit that she couldn't quite do it. Remus J Lupin belonged in a warm room with a fire, a book spread on his knee and a careful smile on his face, not against a backdrop of trees and caves and rocks and Merlin knew what.

For a second, Tonks stalled. It wouldn't change how she felt, would it, seeing him like this, however _this_ was?

Of course it wouldn't. She chastised herself for the thought. If she could handle seeing him with claws and paws and razor-sharp teeth, surely she could handle him a little unkempt and scrawny, doing whatever he had to in order to survive. She pushed her hair behind her ear, and went on, telling herself to focus on the task, as if this were any other mission with any other Order member, and not Remus J Lupin at all.

The trees became even sparser, the sounds of life clearer and more distinct, and the next time she cast it, Tonks' spell indicated a distinct boundary line ahead, a faintly sparkling golden glow against the hard ground above the dead leaves. The edge of the camp, she thought.

Tonks bit her lip. A couple of metres, and she'd be able to see through the trees to the place itself. Her blood seemed to pick up its pace in her veins, and her nerves jangled more and more with each step. She concentrated on that golden line, not wanting to stumble through it as any other intruder would, and once that was just a few feet ahead, she stopped, favouring the cover of the trunk of an old, decaying oak tree in case she'd managed to disarrange her cloak and tiny bits of her were visible.

Her heart thundered against the inside of her ribcage, and she swallowed, slowly leaning around the trunk, raising her gaze to what lay beyond the boundary. She was at the foot of the hill, and beyond the line of the trees lay a small area of scrubby ashen land, all the grass worn away leaving only bare, hardened earth behind. Beyond that was the gaping mouth of a cave, jagged grey rock harsh against the grass and trees, the entrance manned by two sentries. One was a man who seemed middle-aged, his face as craggy as the rock he leaned on, his fists balled and ready at this sides, dirt on his clothes and in his hair. The other was, she guessed, in his early twenties, his arms crossed at his chest, everything about him screaming sinew and bile.

Had they noticed her? Heard her approaching?

They seemed alert to something, and she watched them for a moment, taking in every detail of where they looked, if their gazes dallied where she was, but they didn't seem troubled, and as the minutes passed, Tonks started to think that that defensive stance was the status quo, that they probably always stood like that, glaring out at the world as if they were just waiting for a chance to slap it down for pissing them off. She looked past them, and inside the cave there were indistinct shapes, movement. Tonks thought she could see someone else – a woman, perhaps, but as soon as she thought she'd fixed the outlines of it, the shape was gone.

Her eyes darted at the sound of conversation, and alighted on two more people, a man and a woman, although barely old enough or big enough to deserve those titles. They were huddled together as they sat against a tree, eyes wide and a little glassy, alert as if they were permanently on guard, startled. Off in the distance she could see more people, although they were in her periphery and too indistinct to really make out, cast in rather dull tones by the darkening sky above and the menacing clouds.

Was this what she'd expected? She wasn't sure. Now she was here and faced with the stark reality, she wasn't sure she'd ever imagined anything else. She looked from face to face – a boy had appeared and ducked into the cave, his jeans ragged around the bottoms and barely held up on his skinny hips, his skin pale but his expression bright, and just off to the side were two girls clinging to each other as if they were off for a shopping trip or something, arms entwined, only the hollows in their cheeks giving away that anything was wrong.

Tonks eased forward, careful where she placed her feet, not wanting to make a sound and give away that she was lurking in the woods, and looked down the makeshift path that wound its way past. Down there was more shelter, some kind of shack made from branches and dead leaves, more people, all of them painted with the same muted tones, the same slouching gait, the same slightly odd tilt to their heads, like guard dogs who could never quite relax. They all seemed to be heading for the same place, though – the cave in front of her. The two girls shrank away from the sentries as they passed but dipped inside just as the boy had done, and after a moment, the couple who'd been by the tree headed in too.

Was this where they all lived? The way Remus had described it, she hadn't thought so – but what were they doing if not heading in for the night?

Tonks peered through the trees, trying to figure out what she was seeing. In the mouth of the cave, the woman Tonks had thought she'd seen earlier was dropping firewood into a pile, breaking off some smaller twigs for kindling, and as soon as the wood caught light, beyond her the faint glow of the sparks started to illuminate the inside of the cave, where two dozen – maybe more – people sat against the walls. Some seemed to be playing a game with stones they threw into a heap – others talked – but some just sat, staring at the opposite wall with a vague and purposeless malevolence.

Tonks swallowed. This was where Remus had been living – these were the people he'd been trying to convince. One look at those in the cave – the lucky ones, presumably, the ones with the best shelter, the ones with fire, and food, if those shapes on the back wall were the rabbits she thought they were – told her that it was no surprise he hadn't been making more progress. These people were utterly hopeless.

She looked down, suddenly aware that her hands were shaking. Was it the cold? It was certainly chilly here, the temperature dropping as the light dwindled, but that wasn't it. Months ago she'd thought that rather than sending a spy, they should be storming this place, putting an end to Greyback's plan, foiling the Death Eaters attempts to threaten people like Mrs Montgomery –

But that wasn't what Dumbledore wanted. Did he know? Did he know how these people were living? He couldn't, surely –

Tonks looked back at the cave. She knew that the wizarding world could be a cruel and unkind place for werewolves, but she couldn't imagine it was worse than this. Their faces were gaunt – beyond the word – bones protruding where they shouldn't, clothes tightly clutched to them. The sun would be set soon, she thought, dusk over, and whatever nightly routines happened here would be starting. Would they cook over that fire? Eat together? Would there be fights over who got what? They didn't look, any of them, like they'd be up to much of a brawl, but desperate times –

And that was certainly what these seemed like. She wondered if she should have brought more food than she had done so that Remus could maybe find a way to distribute it. No-one she'd seen so far, perhaps with the exception of the sentry with the sinewy arms looked like they had the energy to do anything other than faint at the first sign of danger, and there were children here – Remus had told her there were dozens, probably, those who had either been abandoned by their families out of fear and loathing, and those who'd been snatched by Greyback, eager to make a family of his own at the cost of destroying others. How many of them would survive in a place like this?

Tonks pulled her cloak tighter about herself, feeling a little guilty as she did so that the people in the cave only had the fire to huddle into, no further protection than that. She tried not to think about how many of them would die before the spring properly came, how many might have died already.

Mad-Eye's words about it being a miserable place unfurled in her mind. He'd got that right, and as the evening sky ate up the last of the dusky light, she could understand what he meant about the dementor-like atmosphere, because here hopelessness seemed to hang like fog in the air, although she suspected that no patronus and no amount of chocolate would chase away the effects.

A rock skidded across the path and Tonks looked up –

And there he was.

Greyback.

Tonks felt all her muscles tense as she watched him, bile rising in her throat as he stalked – there was no other word for it – to the mouth of the cave. The two men standing guard bent their heads and nodded in his direction, everyone else sinking to the walls in a fruitless attempt to shrink from sight. A boy – the one with the jeans that seemed held up by willpower alone, shot one look at him and then scurried away, bare feet scrabbling on the path as he raced to wherever he was going.

Tonks didn't blame him for not wanting to stick around. She'd met a lot of Dark wizards, seen her fair share of charisma twisted into something darker, malevolent, but Greyback was something else. He glowered at the woman closest to the fire until she got up and moved away, running his tongue over his teeth then sneering in amusement as she stumbled, and even the birds in the forest seemed to stop singing, pause in anticipation and trepidation about what might come next.

Tonks' heart pounded. What was going on? Was this normal? Was this Greyback's cave, where he lived? It seemed odd, then, that Remus would choose this as his contact point –

But it was no time to think about that. Remus was nowhere to be seen – and inside the cave, Greyback sat.

Tonks hadn't noticed it before, but at the very back there was a recess, a crude bench-like structure carved into the rock. It would have been big enough for half a dozen people to sit on so they could keep off the cold ground, but Greyback had it all to himself, leant forward, resting his fists on his knees, surveying everyone, his domain, as if it were the grandest throne in Europe.

The light of the fire cast shadows on his face, illuminating the glint in his eye she couldn't help but think of as feral, and Tonks looked at the faces of the people in the cave, their posture deferential, heads ducked but eyes up, cautious.

Slowly, as if he was savouring the moment, their attention, their fear, Greyback started to speak. "My friends," he said. His voice made all the hairs on the back of Tonks' neck stand up and she shivered, looking down towards the shack where more people were coming closer, loitering outside the mouth of the cave, looking in. "I see you've been busy in my absence," Greyback said, gesturing to the rabbits on the wall. "There will be a feast tonight – not the human flesh we crave and should have by right, but enough to keep us going, for now."

A couple of people attempted a smile, a couple who lingered nervously outside the cave exchanged worried glances, and Tonks wondered if they'd been drawn in by the fire or the sound of Greyback's voice echoing in the cave. "I have been to see our allies," he said. "A war is coming, my friends, a war that will bring us everything we have been denied, everything we are entitled too, things beyond our wildest imaginings –"

As Greyback spoke, words about rights and defiance, the natural order of things, Tonks found herself bound by a kind of horrified rapture – his words were so twisted, so full of hatred and stupidity – just plain _blindness _about the reality of what they all faced in the wake of the Death Eaters, that she couldn't bear to look away, compelled to watch, listen, slightly agog.

"Our allies are pleased – privileged – to have us on their side. I anticipate many benefits – "

Out of the corner of her eye, Tonks saw the boy with the willpower jeans approaching, and as she turned slightly to watch him, wondering why he'd come back, she noticed someone behind him, someone who always had been able to get her full attention, effortlessly: a tall, lean man with brown hair and a baggy grey jumper, a patched overcoat and a gait that hurried and yet seemed utterly relaxed at the same time.

Remus.

Tonks' heart leapt, but she tried to press it back into place, tried not to react like a girlfriend who'd longed for a glimpse of this man for weeks, but as someone with a job to do, a message to deliver, a soldier. That's what she was first and foremost, she told herself – just as he was a spy before everything else, and though she hoped that they might have a moment –

She pushed the thought away, knowing that if she let herself think about it she'd become far too distracted to be much use to anyone.

Greyback was still talking, tales of the war and what it would bring, rivers of blood and an all-powerful army of werewolves, feeding on those who had despised them and cast them out. "Vengeance will be ours," Greyback said, and his words rang out through the cave, accompanied by more uneasy smiles, several people shifting as if that wasn't what they wanted at all.

Tonks' eyes darted to Remus. He wasn't far away, not far at all. He was exactly where Mad-Eye had said he'd be, opposite the mouth of the cave, his arms folded as he leant back on a tree, just on her side of the barrier line, taking it all in with a vaguely bored expression. The boy at his side kept glancing up at him, seeing what he thought, then looking back at the cave with an expression of cautious disdain.

Looking at Remus, the familiar expression on his face, Tonks couldn't resist a smile. Maybe he hadn't been spared the tedious meetings after all.

She wondered what to do. Clearly Remus had chosen this spot because it was the place where the barrier line dipped into cover – she allowed her stomach a brief flutter of pride at the thought of him having figured that out – although the boy's presence was a problem. She didn't want to bring him into this, potentially place him in harm's way, but would there be a better chance than this? She had no idea how long Remus would linger, if he'd stay within earshot of Greyback or move off to wherever it was that he spent his time. One thing was certain though – if she'd wanted a distraction to spirit him away, she couldn't have hoped for better than Greyback holding court. All eyes – even the sentries' – were fixed on him, every expression set with rapt and furrowed attention.

Now or never, she thought.

Slowly, Tonks edged forward, the voice in her head telling her with each step to be careful. Grass had never felt like a more treacherous surface beneath her feet, and Tonks took her time, edging between the trees towards where Remus was standing. She willed him not to move, trying to keep in mind where the boundary line had been, thinking how much she'd like to use a detector spell to make sure.

Back at the cave, Greyback was still talking. Every now and then there'd be a murmur from the other werewolves, with the two sentries leading the way, growling their approval for his words. It was all starting to make sense – those two sentries were part of Greyback's inner circle – or perhaps thought they were, and in return for their subservience, their leading of the rest of the pack, they'd get a privileged position, some kind of reward for their loyalty. Everyone else, Tonks thought, toed the line mostly in the name of self-preservation. They wanted to stay in the cave, close to the fire and with access to the food, and Greyback's stories were enough to keep them dependent, too scared to go and search for their own for fear the Muggle gangs would find them and they'd meet a sticky end.

She couldn't say she blamed them. Would she have had the courage to have broken away, to have shunned what protection and survival opportunities she was offered just because she didn't like some of her leader's ideas?

She liked to think so, but there was no way to tell. That kind of courage –

Well, it took some inspiring, that.

She glanced back at the cave. Everyone was listening intently as Greyback droned on about some mythical time when werewolves would be revered and feared in equal measure, drawing a parallel with the vampires who got invited to parties, but saying that werewolves would never allow themselves to be novelty – would never lower themselves to be entertainment. He spat the word out, ground his fist on his knee, and some of the people closest to him recoiled against the walls, as if they feared he might strike them to make a point. Others, lead by the sentries, cheered –

And distasteful as Tonks found it, it was the diversion she needed.

Even the boy's eyes were fixed on Greyback, and so Tonks looked down, hastily made sure her hand was covered, and then reached forward, heart pounding in her ears as she placed her fingers on Remus' arm.

She felt him tense, saw his eyes flicker with sudden alertness, but he didn't flinch, and then he looked down at where he could clearly feel her, frowning a little.

Would he know it was her, she wondered? Sense her by touch?

Tonks let her hand fall away, stepped back a little, wondering what to do next. Could she risk a spell? If she made some kind of noise with her feet at the same time, something natural-sounding that wouldn't attract attention, might that be enough to mask her voice so she could say something? The boy was about three feet away, but maybe if she was quiet –

She was just skimming the ground for a likely-looking rock or pebble when Remus dropped his head slightly in her direction. She looked down to see him making a minor adjustment in the pocket of his coat, letting her glimpse his fingers fastening on his wand. The air buzzed slightly, like some kind of subtle Muffliato spell, and she leant in.

The word 'who?' fell quietly from his lips as they barely moved, and he inched closer to hear her reply. "It's me," she mouthed, her voice barely a whisper, "Tonks."

Remus' shoulders bunched, although whether in surprise or something else entirely she wasn't at all sure. She watched as he scanned their surroundings – she followed his gaze as it took in the sentries, Greyback still ensconced in the cave, everyone's gaze but his fixed in that one same place. This was a chance – a good chance – to get away, but still not without its risks.

Remus nodded almost imperceptibly, and then looked over at the boy. "Isaiah?" he said quietly. "Can you hold the fort?"

"What?"

Remus gestured towards the wood behind them. "I won't be long," he said.

"Don't you want to see what happens at the meeting?"

"Naturally I'm enthralled, but I think I can probably stand to miss a bit," Remus said dryly, and Isaiah grinned. "Besides, that's why you're holding the fort, so you can tell me about it when I get back."

Isaiah nodded, smiled a little and settled back against his tree in an exact imitation of the way Remus had, and Remus in turn winked at him, before shifting back through the trees as effortlessly as if he were melting.

Tonks waited a moment, keen to check his departure hadn't attracted any undue attention, but the meeting seemed to have everyone captivated, and so with a quick glance ahead to see that there wasn't anything in the immediate vicinity for her to trip over and give the game away, she followed.

They walked, in silence, for what felt like a very long time, until they were back deep in the heart of the wood, the meeting not even faded background noise, the trees knitted together overhead and only letting the faintest trickle of rapidly dwindling light through.

Tonks wanted to say something, to ask how Remus was or if they would be all right here, battening down the impulse and repeating that they were soldier and spy first and foremost over and over until it drowned everything but the rapid thump of her heart out.

Eventually, though, Remus stopped, and she halted beside him. "Is it – "

She slid her hood down, but before she'd even had time to undo the cloak at the neck, Remus grabbed her, pulling her close in a hug, knocking the breath and anything she'd been about to say about security questions right out of her as his arms fastened tightly around her. She pressed in closer, breathing him in, the scent of him buried underneath the smell of fresh dirt, curled leaves and something else she couldn't quite place, squeezing him with every inch of strength she had, relief and love and everything else she'd felt since she'd laid eyes on him swirling in her veins. He felt thinner than he had at Christmas – to be expected, she thought, but his arms were still strong and sure as they held her to him. "Merlin, Tonks."

His words were more breath against her hair than sound, and she buried her face in his chest, wishing she never had to move, let him go, again. She allowed herself to enjoy it for a second, to imagine they were on another romantic moonlit picnic, that she'd just revealed a tartan blanket, candles, snacks she'd made that they'd later joke about –

And then pulled back just far enough to look at him. "Wotcher," she said, swallowing the jumble of emotions she felt and attempting a smile. She took in his face, a myriad things fighting on his features – relief in his eyes, creases of worry on his forehead, his mouth slightly open in disbelief. His fingers travelled lightly over her cheek, and he looked at her intently, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, was making sure she wasn't some hallucination, a mirage. "Don't you want to ask me a security question or something? Prove it's me?"

Remus leant back, smiling a little, his fingers rising to her hairline and pressing a lock of hair behind her ear, his eyes rapidly traversing her face, taking her in. "What's the last thing I said to you?"

" 'Take care'," she said, "although as security questions go, that one's not hugely unguessable, is it?"

"I'll try better next time. Say something more unique."

For a second they just looked at each other, and everything – the trees, the sky, her thoughts, _everything_ – seemed to disappear, just as she'd imagined they might in some of her daydreams. She wished it were lighter, that she could see him more clearly, take in all the changes the time apart had wrought, and suddenly she wondered if it wasn't a bit odd for him to have his arms draped around a floating head, and fumbled with the clasp of the cloak, letting it fall open. She wanted to ask how he was, hear from his own lips that he was fine –

But that wasn't why she was here, was it? Snape's words rang in her head, and even if he wasn't there to see, she was damned if she'd give him the satisfaction of being right. Reluctantly, she stepped away a little, her stomach aching as her hands dropped from his waist, longing for his fingers to be back on her face. "Is it safe here?" she said. "To talk?"

"Perfectly," he said. "Greyback's no great shakes when it comes to magic – he doesn't even know how to work the spells he had the Death Eaters place, and he won't let on he doesn't know for fear of seeming weak. What is it? Has something happened? Not Harry – "

"No," she said, smiling in hope of reassuring him, even though she didn't exactly have good news to break, "nothing like that – everyone's fine."

Remus' shoulders relaxed a little, and he nodded, his expression relieved and perhaps a little sheepish because he'd so quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion. "It's not a social call though, I take it?" he said, and Tonks shook her head, wishing that it was.

She glanced up at the darkened sky, almost smiled when she saw Gemini twinkling down at them through a gap in the clouds, then took a quick breath, meeting Remus' eye and thinking that there was no point putting it off, especially when she didn't know how long they had, how long Greyback would keep everyone at the cave. "I've got intel," she said. "The worst kind, really."

She hesitated, part of her not wanting to destroy the moment as she knew she would the instant the words were out of her mouth. She looked to Remus, and his gaze softened in understanding. "Go on," he said gently, taking a deep breath.

"We've had word that Greyback and the Death Eaters are planning an attack on a child."

"A child?"

"It's not a pretty story," she said, "not an unfamiliar one though either – they've been threatening retribution for someone not giving them what they want and this time they're going to use werewolves. Mad-Eye and Dumbledore were hoping that you might have heard something useful – or will soon – they're hoping that you might be able to stop it this end, nip it in the bud."

The phrase felt heavy on her tongue, crass even, and Tonks swallowed and frowned a little, wondering if she should have been more delicate. There was a child's life on the line after all, and here she was talking as if it were nothing more important than a delivery of propaganda pamphlets or some kind of unsavoury get together. She looked at Remus, wondering how he'd take the news, and his expression was set, some mix of wide-eyed repulsion and utter dismay, although she couldn't say he looked entirely surprised. "Right," he said, slowly running a hand through his hair. "I haven't heard – if I had I'd have – "

He stopped, dropped back to lean against the trunk of a tree, his gaze everywhere, across the grass, up to the sky, through the trees, his hand falling to cover his mouth, pressing until his fingers went white, shook a little.

Tonks closed her eyes. It was always so very hard to watch him when he wasn't in perfect control – and she knew it was a privilege, that there weren't many people he let see how he really felt, but –

That didn't make it easier.

Slowly she opened her eyes, raised her gaze to his, and after a moment he met it, his expression odd, weary – almost the same one he'd had after Sirius had died. "How am I supposed to stop it?" he said, voice falling away a little, almost in despair. "I don't know how I'll – I mean you've seen what it's like."

His eyes darted back in the vague direction of the camp, and then he shot her a remorseful glance from underneath a deeply furrowed brow.

Tonks' stomach flipped over. She'd known it wouldn't be easy news to break – how could it be when Remus had lived through exactly what they were trying to stop, but even so, she hadn't expected him to look quite so –

Defeated. She couldn't think of any other word to describe it, but suddenly that seemed achingly appropriate in a way that was utterly wrenching. She'd thought he'd be angry maybe – horrified, definitely, as anyone in their right mind would be – but she hadn't expected for him to fall straight into thinking that there was nothing he could do.

It seemed cripplingly unfair that he should have such a huge burden placed on his shoulders, especially when he was already dealing with so much. She wanted to say something, something soothing, something that would make him feel better, but she couldn't quite think of any words. Instead, she stepped forward, touching him lightly on the arm, shuffling her fingers back and forth over the sleeve of his coat, then sliding them down over his wrist, taking his hand.

His grip in return was almost painful.

"I heard the speech," she said quietly, trying hard to keep the tremor out of her voice. "I think I understand what you meant about it being no place for reasoned argument and logic."

Remus met her gaze through his fringe, for a second looking like he'd taken some solace in her actions, and so she smiled. He returned the gesture, albeit in a rather watery fashion, his grip on her fingers relaxing a little. "Did he do the rivers of blood bit?"

"How did you – "

"It's Thursday," Remus said. "He always does the rivers of blood if he's here on a Thursday. I'm not sure if he forgets, or if he thinks if he says it enough times, it'll sink in. It's a good speech, though – second only, really, to the one about listening for the call of the moon all month long and welcoming the ripping of your flesh when it comes because it frees you from human weakness."

He offered her a faint, dry smile, and for a second the weariness in his eyes rose to the surface and shone right out. Resting against the tree, he looked utterly drained, and seeing how he'd lived, Tonks could well understand it. Living here, surrounded by these people who had run out of hope was bad enough, and yet he was expected, on top of all that, to inspire them to conquer their fears and return to a world that didn't really want them –

It seemed the very definition of fruitlessness, and though she thought she'd experienced that in Hogsmeade, this was on a whole different scale, really. "They don't – the other werewolves – a lot of them didn't seem too convinced by it all."

"No," he said, smiling sadly. "I think they disbelieve nearly everything they're told these days. They're just too scared to stand up and say so, which is no more help, really. Who is it?"

"What?"

"The – erm – proposed victim?"

"Matilda Montgomery?" Tonks said, raising her eyebrows in a question as to whether or not Remus had heard of her. He shook his head. "She's an Obliviator, and the Death Eaters think she knows something that might be of use to them. We don't know if she does, if she's being stoic, or if she really doesn't and they don't believe her. Mad-Eye said that happened a lot last time, people tortured into madness because they couldn't give up information they'd never been privy to. She's got three children, apparently. Two of them are at – "

"Hogwarts," Remus finished, raising his hand to his face, pressing the tips of his fingers into one eyebrow. "I taught them – Susan and Lucy. They've got a brother, I think – no more than five or six?"

He raised his eyebrows in inquiry, and Tonks offered him a tight-lipped smile and nod. "His name's Thomas," Tonks said, and Remus ran his hand over his face, sighing into his fingers. "I'm sorry," she said. "I hadn't thought of that, that you might know them."

"I just – I don't think there's much I can do."

Remus' eyes found hers, and the look in them, as if he were utterly lost, made nausea race right through her. _Always_, whatever he'd told her about facing, Remus had seemed to take things in his stride, deal with whatever problem, however big and all encompassing, in that quiet way of his, as if something else, something he believed in that went beyond the immediate hardships of his life, whatever was to be faced, was driving him. She'd always thought of him as a person who'd never give up.

But now...

All of that seemed to have dwindled. The look in his eyes, the thing that made something akin to panic surge inside her was that he seemed to have lost whatever that was, whatever it was that had given him that strength, that courage, and for a second he looked as achingly hopeless as all the other werewolves had looked in the cave.

What had living here done to him?

Tonks swallowed.

It was up to her, she thought. She had to give him back whatever it was that he normally had, the thing that kept him going, made him fight. She wasn't sure what that was, though. She could tell him she had faith in him, that Dumbledore and Mad-Eye obviously did too, that they wouldn't have tasked him with this if they didn't think he could pull it off – but that sounded so cheesy and inadequate, even in her head.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. When she'd felt at her lowest, just before Christmas, what had she done? How had she kept going? She'd focused, hadn't she, focused on the tangible, been practical, taken each moment as it came, each tiny victory something that gave her just enough to make it through the next day. Would that work for Remus?

She had to try, didn't she? He'd said he wanted – _needed_ – to take this mission to stop what had happened to him happening to someone else, so maybe that's just what they had to do. Stop it happening, not just for the boy, for Thomas, not just because it was the right thing to do, but for Remus, to give what he was doing here purpose, make him see that it was worthwhile, that he could make a massive difference here, just like he had before in the lives of his friends, those who knew him – people like her who couldn't imagine what on earth they'd do without him.

Good in theory she thought, but what about the practical, the tangible, something she could give him to cling to, to focus on? That was supposed to be her area of expertise, wasn't it?

"Remus?" she said quietly, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand, making him look up. "I know this is awful, but – "

"I didn't mean I wouldn't try, just that – "

"No," Tonks said softly, "that's not what I meant."

Remus smiled in a faintly disbelieving fashion, gesturing for her to go on, and so she did. "I think we need to try and ignore the horror of this and – well, tackle the logistics. That's what they teach us in training, that to be effective, you've got to put the stakes out of your mind, ignore what people are capable of and focus on the mundane, the hows not the whys – that's how you can stop them."

Remus frowned a little in thought, and so Tonks carried on, because thought was better than despondency. "So," she said, "we need to think about _how_ it might happen, see if there's a weak link. You need to think – if you were Greyback, how would you do this? Will he do it himself, or might there be a chance he'll get someone else to do it, one of the sentries or someone else – someone you might be able to persuade not to do it? Someone who'd be easier to overpower?"

"I don't know," Remus murmured, rubbing at his jaw as he thought. "Either of those would be feasible. Greyback likes children, we know that, and he doesn't see it as dirty work – might use it as a way to lead by example. On the other hand, he might let one of his inner circle do it, bestow it as a favour, almost."

Tonks' stomach tightened when he met her gaze, partly in approval because that was useful, a start, partly because that despondent look had faded, replaced by the old flicker of life in his eyes, defiance and that spark of thought and invention mingling that he'd always had before.

That was one of the first things she'd liked about him, when they'd plotted a way to get the Dursleys out of the house so they could rescue Harry, the way she'd looked into his eyes and seen that flicker, something that said there was very much more going on beneath the surface than it appeared at first glance. Maybe if she could just keep that, keep him thinking about a plan rather than the potential futility of it, rather than what would happen if they failed –

"Ok, then," she said. "Where does that lead us?"

"Greyback won't be dissuaded," Remus said, "not by me or anyone else. He's – manic about this kind of thing, truly believes he's right – there'd be no way to stop him other than brute force, and with my wand or not I'm not sure I hugely fancy my chances. Someone else, perhaps I could persuade, depending on the person – "

"Have there – I mean at any of the other full moons..?"

Remus looked away, shaking his head. "There have been rumours," he said, "rumours that people who've stepped out of line here have had their families, loved ones, attacked by Greyback and his minions – but the rumours don't tend to circulate until afterwards, and I thought that maybe they were just stories, another way to keep people in line."

"Which they might be – "

Remus sighed. "It's a hell of a thing to risk though, isn't it?" he said, looking down at the ground. "Just imagine – you leave your family behind, thinking that they're better off without you, and then some slight that seems like nothing has them bitten and they end up here with you anyway – or worse. I can't say persuading anyone to actually defy Greyback's wishes is going to be easy with threats like that in the air."

Tonks frowned, pushing thought of Mrs Lupin, if Remus was worried about what would happen to her if Greyback found out what he was up to, what would happen to Thomas if they didn't succeed, what would happen to Remus in the same instance, out of the way. They – those thoughts – weren't helpful. They needed to be practical, not emotional, that's what Mad-Eye always said. When your imagination was racing and sending you visions of what failure would cost you, the only thing to do was ignore them and think, think hard so that what you were imagining never had a chance to come even the slightest bit true.

"Ok," she said. "We don't know who, then, but what about logistically? The Montgomerys aren't local – I checked, so does that give us anything? Would it have to be a werewolf who's also a wizard?"

Remus sank back against the tree trunk, staring at the ground. "No," he said. "Greyback might have the child snatched and then brought here, make it some kind of public spectacle. He does that with animals, sometimes – likes to watch the chase."

"Oh. Right – but that's – well, not good, but if the child were to be snatched, then that'd be before moonrise, wouldn't it – might be a chance for you to intervene or summon us to help."

Remus nodded. "I suppose either way," Tonks continued, "whether the child gets brought here, or someone goes to him, well – how does Greyback get in and out of the camp? Does he Apparate? Floo?"

"I don't know," Remus said. "I've been trying to follow him when he leaves, but he's too alert to that kind of thing – leaves unannounced, without even letting his sentries know where or when he's going, sometimes only leaves for a few minutes, doubles back on himself – and I can't keep an eye on him all the time for fear of arousing his suspicions. So far he's barely noticed me, but he's wily – paranoid, I think – "

"I'll bet."

"His grip here is quite tenuous – it's based on fear, and that's no real basis at all and he knows it. I think that's why he's so keen on getting in with the Death Eaters – he pretends it's a means to an end, but in reality he needs them to stay in control."

"Maybe that's where we should start, then," Tonks said. "I'll see if we can get a look at the Ministry's Floo records – there's a couple of wizarding bakers in Peebles he might be in cahoots with or might be using somehow – I'll look into that, if they've been threatened or whatnot, and I saw on the map there's abandoned buildings – he could have got someone at the Ministry to connect him to the network there."

"Ok."

That settled, Remus looked up at her, squeezing her fingers gently in his, something she couldn't quite place in his eyes. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"All part of the service."

Tonks watched as he closed his eyes for a second, mouth curving a little in what looked like relief. After a moment, he pushed up off the tree, standing tall again, his hair in his eyes, his fingers still tightly wound round hers. "I'll try and keep more of an eye on him – "

"Don't take any unnecessary risks."

"You've seen what it's like, Tonks," he said. "I'm not about to do anything stupid."

"I know, I just – worry."

Remus smiled, perhaps genuinely for the first time since she'd told him about Thomas, and she wasn't sure whether or not she was imagining it, seeing what she wanted to, or if he did seem somewhat fortified. Regardless of whether she was right or not, he stepped closer, taking her chin in his fingers and tilting her face up a little. "Well that," he said, "isn't allowed – as I thought we'd discussed."

"I'm just saying," she said quietly, offering him a small smile, even though she wished they were anywhere else, so she could fully enjoy the feel of his fingers on her skin. Remus let out a soft breath of amusement, his eyes definitely more alive than they had been, that numb, hollow look pushed right to the back. He scuffed her cheek with the pad of his thumb, drawing her in for a kiss.

Tonks closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in thoughts of stars and spinning planets, and for a second, she allowed herself to give in to the impulse, to think of nothing but the way his lips felt on hers, soft and warm in spite of everything, another little slice of eternity right then and there.

It was a necessarily briefer kiss than either would have liked though, and Remus slowly drew back. "I'm sorry to say it," he murmured, fingers tracing the outline of her lips before falling away, "but I should probably go. I don't want Isaiah to come looking for me."

"I know."

She took a deep breath, then made a purposeful step backwards, hoping that space would help. "Oh, before you – " Tonks fumbled in her pocket – she'd almost forgotten. "I brought you some stuff – not much, obviously, I didn't know whether you'd have anywhere to hide things, whether the magic would be detectable – "

She drew what she'd brought with her out of her pocket, a loaf of bread, a fruit cake and a hunk of cheese she'd shrunk and placed under a preservation and chilling charm Molly would have been proud of, holding them out to him. "I thought maybe – if I'd known how bad things were I would have brought more, but I didn't want it to be suspicious. It won't be, will it? "

"No," Remus said, smiling and taking the food, tucking it neatly into the inside pocket of his overcoat. "Not that I'll broadcast it, but it's the perfect cover story, really, that I was off robbing a bakery. Thank you," he added, gaze softening a little. "I can't say I much fancied the rabbit, and I'm sure Isaiah and some of the other children won't say no to a slice of cake."

"He likes you," Tonks said, "Isaiah, I mean."

"Grudgingly," Remus said, a faint smile making its way up his face. "I promised to tell him and some of the others about Lupercalia tonight – "

"I hope you'll include the part about using the story to woo unsuspecting females on Valentine's Day."

"Well that's the best bit," Remus said, smile widening, "and it's seasonal, at least."

Tonks laughed softly, enjoying the momentary lightening of the conversation, the fact that for just a fleeting second, they didn't feel at all like soldier and spy, just them. The memory of a year ago seemed to crackle and swirl in the air, and she wondered if they were both wrapped up in the same thought. That had been an entirely different wood and wildly different circumstances, the only tangible constant between then and now them and the stars that twinkled above. So much had changed, she thought –

These days they were simultaneously closer than they ever had been and yet impossibly far apart – but the important things, well, they hadn't budged an inch.

"You think he – well, he seemed to be on your side," Tonks said, "not at all taken in by what Greyback was saying, and I didn't see many children at the meeting. I wondered if maybe that was your plan, to make an extra effort with them – and you're so good with them."

Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then ran his fingers lightly over his forehead. "I wasn't making much headway with the adults," he said. "Too cynical, too tired – they've seen too much, I think, to have any hope left. I thought maybe the children – if I could inspire them with the thought of not having to accept this, make them believe that this isn't automatically what their lives have to be like, then maybe they'd take it with them, and that might start something – "

"It will."

"Perhaps," Remus said. "I've seen what children can do, for each other and on a larger scale. I mean when you look at Harry and his friends – it doesn't take a genius to recognise the potential, although as a strategy I'll admit it's alarmingly long-haul and not uncomplicated. Especially at story time when I'm trying to weave parables into unsuspecting folktales."

Tonks smiled – it was nice to have him back after his temporary lapse, and a mixture of warmth at the thought and reluctance danced in her insides, knowing that this was the last she'd see of him for a while. "I should probably – " He gestured back through the trees, his eyes then fixing on hers. "Take care," he said.

"Remus, if anyone should be – "

"I mean it," he said, his voice playfully steely in some approximation of amused chastisement that he didn't quite pull off, the concerned dip of his eyebrows belying his tone entirely. "You're not the only one who worries. I don't get much news here and you're right in the heart of things on two counts – "

"I'm fine."

"Yes," he said, smiling down at her. "I can see that, but I'm just saying."

Tonks pressed her lips together against a grin, thinking that she felt more like her old self now than she had in ages, that it was nice in spite of how far apart they'd been, in spite of everything, that they could still be like this. "Moody wants me to set up a protocol for coming back," she said. "He thinks maybe as the moon draws closer you'll hear more, so he wants something in place."

"Will it be you?"

"I'm the logical choice," she said. "I'll fill Moody in on what I've seen and what the plan is, and then I'll come back the day before the full moon – "

"Tonks – " Remus sighed, then stopped, peering at the ground as if he were positively riveted by the movement of the earth beneath him. "It's not that it's not good to see you, but –"

"What?"

He lifted his eyes to hers, wincing a little as if he really didn't want to say what he was about to, yet felt compelled to anyway. "Are you sure?"

"Sure?"

"That you want to come back. I wouldn't blame you," he said, glancing down at his feet, then back up again, half sheepish apology for saying anything at all and half deadly serious, "if after seeing this you didn't – if, in fact, you never wanted to see me – if this had changed – "

"Remus, don't."

"It's just – I don't want you to feel obliged – "

"I don't. I volunteered for this," she said. "I volunteered to come, and I don't want to crush your ego but it wasn't just about you. What you've told me about your life – I can't claim to really know what it's like, but I think I know enough not to want to stand back and watch it happen to another child just because this isn't exactly a fun place to visit. I want to do whatever I can, so I'll see you in the same place, same time, the day before the full moon."

Remus met her eye, some mixture of amusement and something else mingling in his gaze, as if her were just a little bit intrigued and impressed by her. "Do I have to remind you that it's dangerous here?"

"Will you listen if I tell you you don't need to?"

Remus smiled a little, then, defeated in an entirely different and more playful way than he had been earlier, shook his head. "Right then," she said. "I'm glad that's sorted."

They shared a brief, breathy snigger, and then Remus looked at her with real and rather biting reluctance. "I really had better go."

"Ok," Tonks said, stepping closer, placing her hand on his arm, then raising herself up on her toes to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day," she whispered, feeling Remus' smile as it formed beneath her breath.

"Take care," he whispered, his fingers fleetingly covering hers, pressing them gently to him, making the whole of her tingle.

She closed her eyes, trying to memorise the feeling so she'd be able to hold onto it, imagining all the times she'd need it, seeing flashes of deathly dull meetings that made her gaze out of the window and wonder, Aberforth drawing her into conversations about goats, her alone at night, skimming the newspaper, her heart in her throat, in case –

She sank back on her heels, biting her lip until she felt steady again. That wasn't how she wanted to leave things. They were a soldier and a spy after all, and so she glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised, the beginnings of a challenging smile on her face. "If those are your parting words," she said, "you need to do better. You promised me something interesting for next time – _unique_ was, I believe, the word you used."

"All right," Remus said, smirking a little. "I'll see what I can do."

Tonks raised her eyebrows in expectation, eager to see what he'd come up with, but Remus just twitched his eyebrows at her in return, then pivoted smartly on his heel and started making his way back towards the camp. He melted through the trees and she thought that was it, that the next time she saw him, asked the same question, 'I'll see what I can do' would be his reply, but just as he was about to be swallowed by the darkness, he looked back over his shoulder. "Twaddle, hyacinths, black treacle Every Flavour Beans," he said, and she laughed softly, covering her mouth with her fingers, some tingle in her stomach at the thought that she hoped he'd be ok.

She watched until he was gone, and as he walked away, she could just make out him touching the place she'd kissed lightly with his fingers.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and anyone doing so for this one gets an appropriate (if slightly tardy) Valentine snog from a Remus of their choosing: romantic Remus is subtly sweet; flirty Remus is teasingly torturous; sexy Remus is fantastically faintable, and shy Remus signs his on a card ;).**


	24. Inevitability

**A/N: This section contains some lines from The Unknowable Room from HBP (you'll know which ones they are when you get there) – they're JK Rowling's and not mine. **

**Dedicated to the wonderful ishandtwoforths, who's been reading from almost the very start, and whose reviews always make me grin like a loon xx**

* * *

Tonks stood in the pouring rain, waiting for Remus. The pines above swayed a warning, rattling in the gale, and the sweet scent of the bark whirling on the air had never been less welcome or comforting. In fact, it made her feel sick. Or maybe that was the speech that also drifted towards her on the wind, twisted words about a brat crying for his mother, the images of a child not really old enough to know what life was begging for his.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been there. Long enough that the sun had set and night had fallen around her, the glow of the fire throwing shapes inside the cave, alighting on faces drawn with hunger, but amused, excited, animated, like she'd never seen them before. There was a grimly captivating quality to it; she didn't want to look, watch as they laughed, cruel and mindless, but couldn't help it because she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

She knew what they were like, the feral werewolves. Remus had warned her – Moody had warned her, and Merlin knows _Molly_ had warned her – that they weren't like him, that they were different, animal, the very definition of the word wild, and yet she still stood agog, rain cascading down around her through the trees, unable to quite believe the scene in front of her. Thomas Montgomery was six years old and dead, and they were talking about it in the same tone they'd use to tell their friends about a boyhood adventure – laughing, cajoling details out of each other, asking for clarification about which way he'd run, had he stumbled. It was –

She felt beyond sick. She'd smelt the copper of blood on the air before, but there was a cavalier nature to this that took her breath away. They hadn't just given into their animal instincts, they'd gone out of their way to cause harm, and then had enjoyed it, gave not a thought – not even now they were back in their usual forms – to the life they had wasted, to the grief of his family, to the thing they'd snatched away for no reason other than some belief that it would bring them some tiny modicum of gain.

She'd seen a lot of things before, things no person should ever really see, but this was a whole new level, and brought on a swirl of emotions – rage and indignation and disbelief and sorrow – that she wasn't even sure there was a term for. Maybe it was because he was so young. Maybe it was because this boy was an echo of Remus, or because Mrs Montgomery really hadn't known anything at all, or maybe it was because she'd spent the afternoon with her, torn apart by grief as vast as a starry galaxy. She couldn't believe – didn't want to – that they'd really done it, and yet she knew that they had.

Carried away, the healers had said. Happens sometimes when there's more than one.

She pictured a tiny frame underneath a starched, hospital sheet. She wondered how they could do it, but was, in all honesty, thankful that she didn't understand.

A fresh swell of laughter erupted from the cave as someone stoked the fire and embers leapt onto their foot causing them to yelp, and Tonks was glad she couldn't quite make out the jokes they appeared to be making. In the centre, Greyback leered on his stone throne, surveying his minions, a smile – or smirk – pulled taut across his face, containing not one ounce of genuine warmth. Evidently he was pleased with the way things had gone, and there might have been more than one werewolf there when Thomas died, Tonks thought, but it was him who was utterly and ultimately responsible. Her fingers tightened on her wand. Her knuckles were already white – had been for ages, her hands frozen in position beneath the sleeve of Moody's invisibility cloak. One clear shot, she thought, one clear shot and Greyback would be gone forever.

She knew how to do it. Standard training. Summoning the requisite hate, the requisite _desire_ to kill was rumoured to be problematic – one of the reasons aurors had so many other weapons in their arsenal for bringing people in alive and kicking – but today? Today it wouldn't be a problem, she thought. Today she'd think of Remus, think of Thomas Montgomery and the faceless, nameless others she now suspected existed, everyone who had had their lives torn to shreds by this man, and fire that spell with a numb conviction not that she was right to do it, but that she wasn't wholly wrong, either.

In all honesty, it was only imagining her face twisted in bitterness and placeless rage like her dear aunt's that stopped her from doing it.

The trees rattled as a fresh gust swept past, and the laughter from the cave was momentarily louder, then sank away again.

She wished they hadn't been too late. All day she'd been seeing flashes of the last two weeks, trying to see where things had gone wrong, although they'd had it all figured out, in the end, been right in every guess they made. Just as they'd theorised, Greyback was using one of the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Peebles to Floo – the Death Eaters had used their influence at the Ministry to get the place a connection, and it had been all too easy for him, she suspected. The Death Eaters did him a favour, provided the connection, he did one for them in return when called upon, threatened the Montgomerys. He and his inner circle had had a plan of their own of course, to snatch the child, bring him here, dump him in the forest and wait for the moon, but she didn't imagine for a second that any of the Death Eaters would be crying about the loss of one child. They'd probably be pleased, in fact. It'd make the papers eventually, be a warning to everyone else, a great big neon sign that pointed directly to what resistance and opposition could cost you.

They'd tried every avenue to stop it, of course. She'd filed false reports at the Ministry, trying to get the Floo connection closed legitimately, and when that had failed, she'd come here the day before the full moon and she and Remus had tried to destroy it. It had been well protected – it had taken them the best part of the afternoon to pick through the various defensive spells but it was nothing a former Marauder and a top-notch trouble-maker couldn't crack between them, and had it not have been for the fireplace leaping into life and them having to make a run for it as Death Eaters – five, six, seven of them – appeared, it probably would have worked.

She still had the scratches on her arms from the dash through the bracken to safety. She'd wanted to go back – had wanted to fight, actually, because seven to two was nothing with someone like Remus at her side – but he'd insisted, had said he'd go back alone when it was safe and do what he could.

The rain had started then, tumbling down like a portent, and he'd urged her to go, to be safe. He'd been desperate, utterly. More desperate than he had been two weeks ago, more desperate than he had been when Dumbledore had charged him with the mission, more desperate than he'd been when Sirius had died. She could barely think about the look in his eyes, concern so palpable it seemed to almost cause him pain. He hated her being there, and she loved him for it. She'd kissed him in the rain, hurriedly, her fingers gripping too hard and her lips too hungry to be sated, and he'd tasted of cold and desire and something –

She'd clung to him as if they were caught in a storm that went beyond rain and clouds and a spot of thunder, as if they were slipping away from each other, and before she'd known it, her back was against the rough bark of a tree and her hands were inside his coat, revelling in the feel of his body. Partly it was the moon, the pull of it, the way it affected him, and she knew that, but beneath that was that thing she knew they could both taste on each other's breath – anguish, longing, desolation.

If it hadn't been for the shout, she didn't think they would have stopped. "It's Isaiah," he'd said, breathless. "I told him to mind the fort and come and get me if anything unusual happened."

His eyes had held a world of regret beneath his fringe, plastered to his forehead by the rain, and though he clearly hadn't wanted to, he'd moved away. At first, she'd wavered on going. "Maybe I should – "

"No."

His voice had been harsh, had startled her a little, and then he'd softened, his fingers on her arm as he told her to go, that he'd be fine, made a joke that didn't really register in his tone or his eyes about not wanting her anywhere near a bunch of horny werewolves the night before the full moon. He'd kissed her quickly, then walked away through the trees, running his hands through his sopping hair, and that was the last she'd seen of him.

Tonks looked back at the cave, sighing. They'd had it all figured out, but it hadn't helped. On the evening of the full moon, she'd been on duty in Hogsmeade, had tried to get out of it, swap with someone – _anyone_ – had been on the verge of convincing Dawlish to pull a double –

If they hadn't seen those flare-like shots of green lighting up the next road, she might have had him convinced, but as it was they'd raced to action, towards a house in the village that had quickly and unexpectedly become the target for a Death Eater raid. They were Muggleborns, of course, nothing else to set them apart – and when they got there it was nothing but blast and bombast, really, what Moody called a mischief raid, the younger recruits blowing off steam, perhaps – no intel to be gathered, just arrogance and disregard and prejudice at play, broken bones and ripped skin and daubs of green magic on the walls in a crude 'we woz ere'.

At the time, as she fired shot after shot into the sunset after the retreating cloaked figures, she'd known it was a diversion, had felt it in her veins. She'd been too obvious, probably, sniffing around the Floo network division, asked too many questions, and without her helpful ability to change her face and cover her tracks –

She'd known that it was a diversion, but lives were lives, so she'd taken the injured Muggleborns – whose names she could, to her embarrassment, no longer remember – to St Mungo's, had clung to the hope that Diggle and Moody would have taken the Montgomerys to safety, or Remus had managed to get to the Floo, and that the sinking feeling in her stomach was just that, a feeling, paranoia and fear, and nothing to do with reality.

She'd clung to that until Moody's patronus had appeared for her in the toilets at the hospital, whispered in her ear that they'd been too late, that the boy had been snatched earlier in the day and Mrs Montgomery had been incapacitated, that they were mounting a search on the borders, but that volunteers to go anywhere near a feral werewolf camp when the moon was high in the sky were pretty thin on the ground.

She'd gone straight away, of course. They'd searched pretty much the whole forest, she and Moody, systematic, alert, scanning the ground and listening on the breeze for a tell-tale cry or the muffled sounds of fear. The trees had reared above them, bark twisted into frozen faces that were either angels or devils screaming in the moonlight, and they'd dodged bracken and detection spells, desperate –

She'd imagined Remus, somehow having avoided the pull of the moon, emerging from the trees with the boy safe in his arms. But of course that was nothing but a stupid fantasy.

Moody had been the one to spot the body. That magical eye of his.

Everybody said he gave the best wizarding first aid their world had ever seen, but still –

Happens sometimes, the healers had said, when there's more than one of them and they get carried away.

Tonks closed her eyes for a second, trying to make the images stop, but she knew they were in her head for good now. She focused on the rain, listened to the soft thud of it on the forest floor, drew in a long, slow breath of musty, damp air. Exhaustion teased at her nerves, made her dizzy, almost, and in amongst everything she wished, plain and simple, for Remus to appear and take her home.

That was what it was like these days. She didn't wish for fancy things anymore – no fantasies of rock stars and excitement or a life spent at break-neck pace, seeing everything the world had to show – just simple things, a sofa and a mug of tea and Remus beside her reading the paper.

Another laugh rippled round the cave, and Tonks looked up, took the faces in one by one as the firelight danced over them. Some were gaunt, taut, skulls with a paper-thin sheath of a face, others were craggy, skin bunched and yellow, but that wasn't what she was looking for. She was hoping that she'd see _somewhere_ a flicker of something –

Human.

The word, even imagined, stuck in her throat. She'd just done it, thought for the very first time of these werewolves – who she'd previously thought of as something to be pitied, something wretched and driven by hopelessness – as less than people.

A pulse of embarrassment and shame shot through her, but how could she not think that, after what she'd seen? Even those who weren't there, who were running around the forest after rabbits or deer were culpable because they hadn't tried to stop it. They sickened her almost as much, she thought, the ones who just condoned for an easy life.

She knew she was being unfair. She knew that the cave was less swollen with bodies than it had been the first time she'd been here and that there were probably dozens who didn't _condone_, just cowered in fear because there was nothing else they felt they could do, but the thought of Remus, the lone sane voice in this place, the only one fighting against it...

She checked her watch, although she hardly needed to to know that Remus was woefully late. She hoped he was just too infuriated by this meeting – or whatever it was – to be here, that something hadn't happened, although there was an iron fist in her stomach that said that something beyond the usual, beyond Greyback and his sickening sneer, was wrong. She hoped that was just a feeling too, just the product of too little sleep and too much adrenaline, although as the minutes ticked by to the soft thwack of the rain on the ground, that got harder and harder to believe.

Where _was_ he?

* * *

The moon sat above, fat but no less malevolent-looking than usual, surrounded by plump, grey clouds that gambolled across the sky. The camp was quiet – eerily so, she thought, as if 

there was something unsavoury going on somewhere and she just couldn't see it. The cave had emptied, people drifting off to their groups or doing whatever they did at night, and Greyback had disappeared completely, ducking into the trees at the side of the cave and almost evaporating on the breeze. Tonks checked her watch. 9.43, which put Remus at approximately four hours overdue.

She hadn't wanted to move before now for fear of either drawing unwanted attention or missing him, but now it seemed that the only option available was to go and look for him. Not an option without its problems, because for one she had no idea where he might be, and for two, stealth and tracking really had never been her forte, and the thought of embarking upon such a mission within the confines of a werewolf camp – even when they were all distinctly post-lunal – didn't fill her with anything even approaching glee.

The only other option, though, was to go back to the Hog's Head for a no doubt sleepless night and come back tomorrow, only to be faced, she suspected, with the same less than appealing options. Briefly, she heard Moody in her head: the only stupid plan's one that gets you killed, and battening down the impulse to either laugh or make a run for it, she flexed her fingers underneath the damp sleeve of her robes, pointed her wand towards the place she knew the boundary line lay, and broke the detection spell.

She waited a moment, a trick Moody had taught her: when you're doing something reckless, never blunder in – give it a minute – and when nothing happened, she stepped forward, mindful of her footing on the wet leaves because she'd been standing still for so long she wasn't entirely sure her feet would remember how to move.

Slowly, she made her way down the path that lead around the cave, picking out the slipperiest slate rocks in the moonlight as best she could. At least the wind had died down, and the pine trees that lined the way gave some protection from the breeze, although there wasn't really anyone around to pick out the odd stray foot that appeared out of nowhere if she made a mistake. The voice in her head asked what on earth she thought she was doing – she didn't know the area at all, had only been here a handful of times – told her that the chances of her finding Remus were almost negligible, but she ignored it and pressed on, because even this was better than doing nothing.

Soon she discovered that the camp was bigger, more sprawling, than she'd thought it was. Remus had described mini territories, and she could almost see where the demarcation lines lay as people clustered around their own small fires under the shelter of rocky outcrops or 

trees. She noiselessly passed several groups, none of whom were laughing as those who'd been in the cave had, just huddled together and slept or stared into space in a quite disconcerting fashion. She felt a slight stab of regret for the judgement she'd made in the forest. It wasn't fair to judge them all by Greyback's standards, as it wouldn't be fair to judge wizarding kind by Voldemort's, and the glassy eyes that stared into the darkness spoke of people who were lost, not evil.

She pressed on down the path, and heard them before she saw them, another group, their voices higher pitched but hushed, whispers carrying on the swell of the air. They sounded like –

Children.

She rounded a bend, and there they were, a whole bunch of them. They'd made their home – if you could call it that – in the ruins of a wooden hut, thick pine slats standing on two sides which they'd made into some kind of make-shift bivouac, and they had blankets inside, grey and torn but clutched protectively in their tiny hands. Some of them were sleeping, little bodies pressed together for warmth, but others were awake, talking of gossip and tomorrow and food, like some twisted version of an all-night pyjama party.

Her heart caught in her throat at the sight of them, skinny legs and jutting elbows, faces dirty and worn but older, too, than they should have been. Her insides twisted. There was so much wrong with the scene in front of her that she could barely comprehend it. Each one of them must have a story – had they been bitten for revenge, sins of their fathers and mothers foist upon them? Were they orphaned? Abandoned? Runaways who'd chosen this because they didn't have anything else to choose? Any of those – well, there was no preferred option there, each one crushing and horrible in its own way.

She tried to focus, reminded herself that _this_ was why she was here, why Remus was here, to put a stop to this, that responding emotionally ultimately wouldn't do any of them any good. She looked around, skimming the sleeping and chattering faces, and her eyes picked out a familiar form, the boy with the will-power jeans. He was away from the others, sitting just beyond the edge of the tree-line, where a fallen oak's root ball erupted from the broken earth and waved at the sky. The boy sat cradled against the trunk, roots and moss around him, like some kind of half-sheltering cocoon. She watched him for a moment, wondering what he was doing, why he wasn't with the others, but every now and then his eyes would dart around the immediate area in a pattern she recognised – deliberate sweeping motions over the perimeter, a quick assessment, then back to check the edge of the forest, the trees opposite, the darkened spots behind the shack – all the danger points, the places someone could hide. It was all too apparent what he was up to. He was on guard duty.

The pang in Tonks' chest at the thought was almost painful, so young to have such a responsibility, but she knew he was a chance – perhaps the best one she'd get – at finding Remus. She thought quickly – she could hardly just whip off her cloak and dash over there – if she didn't frighten him to death she'd draw all the wrong kinds of attention and definitely not put him in a co-operative frame of mind. She pressed her lips together in thought: use what's here, use the situation, use whatever's available. There was a copse to her left – distinctly in his line of sight when he made another sweep – and so quietly, she made for it. She'd be obvious, she thought, but unthreatening, try and get him on side. And if all that failed, she'd just have to bribe him and then Obliviate him or something. She was too tired to think of anything more sophisticated.

She went just far enough into the cover of the trees to be out of sight, removed the cloak and slipped it into her pocket, tried to rearrange herself to look like she belonged. The hair, she supposed, would help. If she'd have been able to, she'd have morphed something along these lines anyway, she thought, something unobtrusive and limp and dowdy – it was the first time she'd really been glad that her appearance echoed what she felt.

She took a quick deep breath, stowed her wand in her pocket, thinking that at least her less than stellar stealth and tracking skills would be an advantage, then made her way back through the trees towards the boy. Purposefully, she trod on a twig, annoyed when it didn't snap and wondering why she could only attract attention when she didn't want it, and so she tried again with a more forceful placement of her foot, muttering 'arse' under her breath when all she did was skid on the leaves. It was an unconventional approach, perhaps, but it worked. Bright, would-be menacing eyes snapped up in an instant, and she met his gaze and smiled, tentative but friendly. She was taking a chance, she supposed, that he wouldn't scream the place down and bring a whole bunch of irritated werewolves running, but Remus had trusted him – twice – and she trusted _him_, so...

The boy watched her carefully as she approached, and in her periphery she saw a couple of the others look up and watch her too, then look to the boy for a reaction, a lead. She ignored them – he was the one she needed – and as she drew closer, she offered him a 'wotcher', and got a nod in return. "Do you mind if I – "

She gestured to the tree as if it were a sofa, and the boy nodded again, suspicious but trying not to show it. His muscles were too apparent beneath his skin, though, and even though he was slow, practiced at stealth – better than she would have been in his position – she could see his muscles tensing, his hand rest casually on the ground, forming a fist around a rock. She sank down on the wet bark of the fallen tree, pulling one of her knees up and clasping her hands around it in some show of ease, defencelessness. "It's Isaiah, isn't it?" she said, and he peered up at her, curious how she knew, suspicion pricking harder than ever in his huge blue eyes. "I'm friends with Remus. He pointed you out, said you were mates."

"Right."

His voice was a soft and indiscriminate Cockney, some amorphous orphan voice at once rough and ready and scared, and his eyes were alert, spooked but defiantly hard. "How long have you got left?" she said, trying to put him at ease. "On duty?"

"Dunno," he said. "How long is it til sunrise?"

Tonks shot him a look she hoped he'd interpret as understanding, tried a smile as she glanced up at the dark sky. "A while, then."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence, and after a moment or two, some of the tension in Isaiah's body released, and his grip on the rock loosened as he obviously decided that she wasn't an immediate threat. Tonks picked at the sleeve of her jumper, feigning nonchalance about what she was about to say. "You don't know where he is, do you? Remus?"

She'd expected surprise, for suspicion to return, perhaps, but Isaiah's face took on an altogether unexpected expression, tight with disbelief to the point of almost amusement. "He's gone, hasn't he," he said, and Tonks felt her eyes widen.

"Gone?"

"Yeah. Fought with Greyback's cronies and then – "

"_Fought _with – "

His reply was so unexpected, she couldn't even finish the sentence, just let the words fall from her mouth and hang there in the air between them. She traced Isaiah's face for any hint that he was playing a joke, or testing her, but his amusement that this was news to her was far too convincing to be put on. "He'd have 'ad em too, if there hadn't been so many of 'em," he said, something like pride in his voice, as if Remus were his protégé. "Gave Cole a right limp and I think he broke that fat one's nose, and a couple of the others were in a right state – saw them at the lake, trying to clean the blood off, cursing him – only they think his name's Michael, for some daft reason – "

"Remus was in a fight? An _actual_ fight?"

"Where have you been?" Isaiah said, smiling in light mockery. "Everybody's been talking about it all bleedin' – "

His words faltered, and he looked at her, his eyes roving, assessing. She tensed, wondering what he was thinking, half-planning an escape route through the forest in case he called for help – back the way she'd come was her best bet, even though it wasn't the brightest idea, from a tactical standpoint. Maybe if she got enough of a head-start, she'd be able to put the cloak on again and hide –

Isaiah, though, smiled as if he'd just been let in on some private joke, and whatever his assessment of her was, he didn't share it. Instead, he looked down at the grass, shaking his head, pulling up a couple of damp stalks with his fingers. Tonks swallowed. "What happened then?" she said, trying to force the panic in her chest back down again. "After the fight? Greyback doesn't strike me as the type who'd take that lying down."

"He don't care 'bout his sentries," Isaiah said. "He don't really care about anyone – s'just a game and they're the pieces." He turned to face her a little more, leaving his rock behind, enjoying his moment, she thought, of having information – knowledge – that she wanted. "There's always more where they came from – they think they're special because he lets them guard his cave but he just laughed at them, said it'd teach 'em to duck."

He sniggered with quiet derision, and all of a sudden Tonks could see why Remus liked him. His eyes were glittering – alive – fiercely intelligent, his voice holding plenty of disdain for Greyback and his lot, as if he could see through them and the whole situation with far more clarity and insight than some of those twice his age. "What about Remus?" she said, leaning in. Her voice was tight with concern, but she didn't mind him hearing it.

"He went off into the woods," Isaiah said. "I followed him – walked for ages. Thought I'd give him a minute cos he was shaking and stuff and then go and speak to him, but when I got close – he didn't see me. He just disappeared – poof – like – well, you know – "

"Like magic?"

Isaiah shrugged, looked away, as if unusual things weren't unusual at all, and she wondered what he'd seen that had made him so inured. Something Remus had said drifted back to her, that what was there to fear when the worst had already happened and you _were _the monster in the woods, and she could see that now, some echo of it, in Isaiah's face. She supposed there was nothing quite as unbelievable as werewolves being real, being one of them, living here. "When was this?" she said softly.

"This morning," Isaiah said. "Don't think a lot of people thought he had it in 'im, but I always knew. He always gets fired up about anything to do with the kids – reckon it's cos he was a teacher."

Tonks smiled a little, even though his words pulled at her insides. Isaiah was no more than thirteen and yet already considered himself not a child, not one of the kids about whom Remus would get riled. She supposed he wasn't. Here he was on guard duty, after all, a soldier, a professional, and compared to some of the children huddled in the shelter, he was positively ancient. Not that that made it right.

She looked up at the stars poking out between the clouds, her thoughts eventually winding their way to Remus. In a fight. With Greyback's cronies. She wasn't sure what the word was for what he'd done. Reckless? Stupid? Noble? All of those, she thought. She understood the impulse – had had it herself at the cave – but trying to foil a plot with the weight of the Order behind him was one thing, trying to pick off Greyback's cronies right here in the heart of their territory was another entirely.

It gave her hope, though, that he still had it in him to fight, that somewhere inside the dejected and desperate man she'd seen the night before the full moon, there still beat the heart of a Marauder – someone who'd do what he thought was right, even if that was – or perhaps _because_ it was – stupid and reckless and noble. "Did he – I don't suppose he said where he was going? Do you think he's coming back?"

"Didn't say," Isaiah said. He shrugged again, thin shoulders seeming to exaggerate the gesture, picked at some loose skin around his nails as if this was all too regular an occurrence, people leaving him. "But if he had anywhere else to go, wouldn't he be there already?"

Tonks murmured a vague agreement, and sat for a moment, wondering what to do. Her head was a-buzz with thoughts and half-formed images – she wanted to do something for these children, help, take them away – but what could she do? Cram them all into her room at the Hog's Head and lock them in the cellar with the goats come the night of the full moon?

That was the worst thing about this. There were never enough answers, never any solutions, just an unending struggle against forces that seemed insurmountable and gaining in strength all the time. Moody's voice boomed in her head, telling her not to think like that, and – what was it he said? You can't win all the battles in all the wars at once. Sometimes you've just got to pick the spot on the end of your nose. She'd always hoped he meant it less than literally, that sometimes, you just had to tackle what was right in front of you at any given moment, do what you could.

Tonks rooted in her pocket – she'd brought another fruitcake – Molly had been only too happy to oblige – more bread, and surreptitiously she re-sized them and held them out. "I brought these for him but you might as well have them," she said, trying to be casual. "If anyone asks, you stole them from the bakery, OK?"

Isaiah eyed her a little warily for a moment, instincts clearly warring. His eyes kept darting to the cake, then back again to her as if weighing whether he dared, and she wondered if kindness was so scarce here he'd forgotten what it looked like. "I haven't poisoned them," she said quietly, jovially, hoping that was the correct approach. "I was going to give them to Remus and I like him a lot."

Isaiah's expression changed – evidently she'd said the right thing, and he took the loaf, settled it in his lap, and then the cake. It looked impossibly big in his bony hands. "What about Remus?"

"Don't worry about him," she said, "I'll find him." She forced a smile, trying to be convincing, not let the lie of 'don't worry' show on her face when just below the surface she was nothing _but_ that. "Anyway," she said, swallowing. "I best be going – distracted you long enough."

She eased herself up off the tree and with a faint smile and nod, turned away. She wished there was more she could do. This boy – didn't he deserve a better chance than this? Didn't he deserve –

"Are you the girl he showed the stars to?"

The words caught her like a snare, and in spite of everything, Tonks smiled as she looked back at him. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah I am."

Isaiah frowned a little in some thought or other, then wrinkled his face up. "Thought you'd be prettier," he said.

"Yeah well," Tonks said, rolling her eyes, "it's been a long day. Not exactly at my best, you know?"

"Sorry," Isaiah muttered. "S'just – the way he talks – " He stopped, swallowed, shifted a little in the hollow of his roots. "When you find him," he said, "tell him – " He faltered again, as if he'd forgotten something. "Dunno – just – he doesn't really fit in here so if he _has_ got somewhere else – "

"You don't think he fits in here?"

"I think it's cos he's not s'posed to."

The words lingered for a moment, shimmering, almost, in the darkness. Tonks felt her cheek twitch into something approaching a genuine smile – the first one in weeks – because that was it exactly. There was nowhere Remus belonged as little as he did here. She felt a surge of affection for this boy and his will-power jeans, because he could see it too. "Between you and me," Tonks said, "I don't think he's the only one who's not supposed to be here."

"Yeah well," Isaiah said, a world-weary sigh falling from his lips, "if we had anywhere else to go, we'd already be there."

"I know," she said quietly. Thoughts collided in her head – anger that this situation existed, fantasies about making things better, but she was useless at this kind of thing at the best of times. "Just – don't give up, ok?" she said. "Don't be like them, Greyback and his lot."

Somehow it sounded woefully inadequate out loud, because it was. She wanted to say something else, something about Remus having people who loved him and treated him as they would anyone else. She wanted to tell him about James Potter and Sirius Black – two of the greatest wizards of the age – being his mates, going to extraordinary lengths for him – she wanted to give him something to cling to, some kind of hope that the world wasn't full of baseless hatred and stupid prejudice, but the words stuck in her chest and even there they made tears prick in her eyes. "I'll be back if I can," she said, instead.

Isaiah smiled, quickly and with only half-commitment, as if he appreciated the thought but knew it was a promise destined to be broken. "Thanks for the cake," he said.

* * *

Tonks leant against the wall of The Poplars, mentally scratching another name off her list. In the last three days she'd been all over the country looking for Remus. She'd run the gauntlet of Moody's household defences, been beaten by the wind as it whipped off the sea at Mrs Lupin's, and after a sleepless night at the Hog's Head, had tried Hestia's, Kingsley's, and now she could cross Remus' windmill and this place off too. She was fast running out of ideas, places he might be, and even though she tried not to think about the whys of it, she couldn't deny that it was stinging more and more that Remus had considered her to be far from his first port of call.

Moody had told her – insisted – that Remus had a lot of positive attributes but handling bad news well wasn't one of them, that the death of the Montgomery boy had probably hit him hard and he just needed some time alone. Tonks knew he was, in all likelihood, right, because of course Remus would feel partly responsible, and guilty and –

She couldn't quite make that sit right, though, because shouldn't he trust her to help him, be there for him? She checked her watch. She only had twenty minutes before her next shift in Hogsmeade, and so with a sigh she pushed herself up off the wall and Apparated.

As she trudged up the rickety stairs in the Hog's Head to change, she half-indulged in a fantasy, some kind of reunion, had the conversations in her head, tweaking and testing out the phrases she'd use when she got back to her room and there he was, leaning on her door, ragged and worn but hers and here.

It was a testament to how tired she was, she supposed, that she didn't even feel any real, aching disappointment when he wasn't there.

* * *

"Who is it?"

"It's me. Tonks."

The door opened a crack, and Molly peered out, beaming but trying not to show it. "What was the last thing I gave you to eat?"

"A large fruit cake with extra currents and no cherries," Tonks replied, and Molly opened the door and beckoned her inside.

The Burrow was always a welcoming place, and today the smells of a roast dinner curled in the air, making Tonks at once long for a little slice of normality and feel guilty for wanting to wallow in the warmth when somewhere a whole bunch of children sat shivering in the cold, probably with nothing to eat but a tiny share of a large fruit cake with extra currents and no cherries. She shook the drizzle from her hair and brushed it off the shoulders of her cloak, sighing a little at the sight of Arthur alone at the table with the weekend papers. "Tonks," he said, getting up halfway in welcome, then sitting down again, "this is a surprise. Not bad news, I hope?"

"No," Tonks said. "Not really."

"Cup of tea, dear?" Molly said, already pointing her wand at the kettle. "You look like you could do with one."

Arthur folded the newspaper in half and set it on the table, gestured to a seat, and Tonks offered him a yawn she had to turn into a smile and stifle with her hand. She hadn't slept again – her shift had ended at two, but after that all she'd done was stare at the ceiling, her head full of questions and lists, thoughts about Remus and everything that had happened whirling round and round in an endless maelstrom of white noise. She needed to find Remus soon for the sake of the bags under her eyes as well as her sanity, she thought. "Not really?" Arthur said, leaning in.

"It's Remus," Tonks said. "I was kind of hoping he was here, but evidently he's not."

"Remus? Why ever would he be here?" Molly said.

"Because he's – well – he's not exactly with the werewolves anymore."

"Oh well I'm glad to hear it. About time Dumbledore saw sense, and after what happened to that poor boy – "

"It's not – it's not quite like that," Tonks said. She winced – she wasn't entirely sure how Molly would take the news that Remus did something as rambunctious as fight, and she was skittish about werewolves at the best of times. But two pairs of eyes were eying her inquisitively, and Molly and Arthur were more at the heart of the Order than she was these days so they'd hear eventually, anyway. "Remus was in a fight with the ones who murdered Thomas Montgomery, and now he's disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Arthur said.

"I mean – I can't find him. I've been all the places I can think of except here and Hogwarts – "

Tonks stopped as Molly's eyes widened in horror. "You don't think they've gone after him and – "

"Now now, Molly," Arthur said. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Molly nodded her agreement, looked away frowning, turning her attention to Summoning mugs from the dresser and making the tea, and Arthur said something or other – but Tonks sat, stone-still, at the table, not listening. She hadn't even _thought_ of that, that the werewolves might have gone after him. What if they'd found him – done something –

Isaiah had said that Greyback didn't care, but he was just a child. She couldn't trust his –

She was out of her chair again and reaching for her cloak before the thought had even fully formed. "Thanks for the offer, Molly, but I think I'd best be off."

"Tonks – "

"I'm sure there's no need for – "

She Apparated without waiting to hear what more they had to say.

Hogsmeade was deserted, and she made her way quickly across the damp cobbles, her heart pounding and her blood rushing in her ears. She'd thought about Apparating straight to the Hogwarts gates, but then she'd have to send a patronus inside, and the last time she'd tried that she'd ended up with Snape, something which, today, she wasn't in the mood to risk. He was sure to have something to say about the werewolves, about Remus, had made some jibe the last time she'd seen him about how _unusual_ it was for someone to pine so after a dog and not the other way around, and today – well, she couldn't afford the distraction of smacking him in the face.

The only thought in her head was Dumbledore, that he'd know what to do. If the werewolves had taken Remus –

She couldn't even contemplate the thought, but in her head she started going over everything she knew about the camp – where the boundary lines were, which spells you needed to break them, numbers, layout, possible good positions to mount an attack.

The door to the Hog's Head slammed against the wall as she pushed it open too fast, and Aberforth dropped the glass he was polishing and startled the hag in the corner into sloshing gin all down her front. They both swore, and she waved some apology at them as she darted through the bar, making for the stairs, the plan getting clearer and clearer in her head. She'd go to Hogwarts, tell Dumbledore what she suspected, and then from there they'd summon some of the Order's better fighters and Apparate to the camp. They'd start there, work their way out, take in the abandoned buildings too if they had to.

The portrait in the sitting room was easy enough to lift, and she slipped behind it quickly, letting it fall back and sealing herself in. The earthy smell of the passageway was quite reminiscent of the bar downstairs, almost making her gag, but she knew from experience that this was the quickest, easiest and most Snape-free way into the castle. It took all the willpower she possessed not to sprint, but she knew from several sprawls in the dirt when she'd used this passageway before that there were roots and other obstacles all too eager to trip her, and the last thing she needed was to have to stop and perform first aid on one of her own broken ankles.

Soon enough, though, she was in a familiar corridor at Hogwarts, her mouth completely dry and her heart hammering in her chest. She'd wasted so much time running around the country –

The walls seemed to blur and flex around her in time with her stuttering heartbeat, and she was glad she didn't have to concentrate, could rely on her feet to take her to Dumbledore's office without giving the actual journey much thought. She fixated on the details of the mission, working through them in her head. Ideally they'd need another Apparation point, something on the other side of the camp, but she'd never made it that far round. Maybe Moody had –

"Ouff!"

Tonks staggered a little, for a second too dazed to see what she'd walked into, and then two bright, annoyed eyes behind all-too-familiar spectacles glared at her. "Nymphadora," 

Professor McGonagall said, adjusting her robes, brushing imaginary dust off them, "I'll kindly remind you to watch where you're going. Umbrella stands are one thing, people quite another."

"Sorry," she said quickly, and Professor McGonagall's eyebrow raised in impressive chastisement, and she made a show of straightening her glasses on her nose, even though they weren't the slightest bit crooked.

"Might I ask what the cause of such disregard for the health and wellbeing of those around you is? There's not – something that requires immediate attention?" she said, leaning in, abruptly more Order member than teacher, the question about whether something was happening in the village, something that was a threat to Hogwarts, implicit. Tonks shook her head.

"It's not that – I just need to see Dumbledore," she said, the words coming in a rush, because under Professor McGonagall's gaze, she felt fourteen again, less auror and more like she'd been caught out of bed late at night doing something stupid.

"I'm afraid the Headmaster's not here at present," Professor McGonagall said. She leant in closer, her fingers fastening on Tonks' arm and drawing them towards the wall. "He's not expected back for some time," she added, her head dropping down so she could peer at Tonks over the top of her spectacles significantly. "Is there something I might be able to help you with?"

Tonks shot glances up and down the corridor, but apart from the statues and suits of armour, the place was deserted. "It's Remus," she said, quietly. "He's – well – missing."

"Missing?"

Professor McGonagall's eyebrows leapt on her forehead, and Tonks quickly filled her in on what had happened at the camp, what she feared might have happened to Remus. "That's why I need to see Dumbledore, so we can do something, get him back – "

"Nymphadora, this all seems very – "

"I've got a plan," Tonks said. "If I could borrow a room here – just for – I don't know half an hour? Just long enough to send word to people to meet me at the Hog's Head. I've got a map, I think, and Mad-Eye might know of another safe place to Apparate, so – I mean we won't have them surrounded, but maybe a two-pronged approach and we can take them by surprise, in and out before most of them have noticed – "

"You plan to – to mount some kind of rescue mission?" Professor McGonagall said, eyes widening incredulously.

"I don't see we've got any other choice, especially if Dumbledore's away. I know he wanted Remus to be an envoy and this will definitely put pay to that, but – I think they must have followed him somehow when he left – I mean I don't know how they did it, without magic, but – where else would he be? It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Nymphadora," Professor McGonagall said sternly. "Am I to understand that Remus left of his own free will, under no duress or suspicion whatsoever, that there hasn't been the faintest _whiff_ of a hint that something amiss has happened to him, and simply because he hasn't made himself immediately available to you, you assume the very worst?"

Tonks swallowed. When she put it like that, it did sound a bit, well, barking. "But – "

"Am I to further surmise that you want to drag half the Order to the borders with you and undo months of good work on the grounds of a baseless suspicion?"

Tonks tried to think of something to follow her 'but', but found herself a little too stunned by the force of Professor McGonagall's rather flawless reasoning. "I understand your – concern," Professor McGonagall said, "but – Remus is a grown man, someone who has been at the heart of something rather terrible, and surely it's not stretching the bounds of possibility that he's simply not ready to return to his former life yet?"

Tonks blinked. That did sound – well, reasonable, although she couldn't say she found the idea as comforting as she thought she should. "You don't think something's happened to him, then?"

"If I thought that," Professor McGonagall said, face softening a little, "I assure you I'd be leading the charge."

"I still think – "

"Were there evidence to support your theory," Professor McGonagall said, "I might be inclined to a different conclusion, but as it is, is it not possible that a lack of sleep and your – friendship – with Remus has lead you to be more keen to act than is perhaps warranted on this particular occasion?"

Tonks bit her lip. There was no answer to that, or if there was, it was one she didn't much care for. "I would suggest that a good night's rest might be in order before you plan a daring rescue for a man who, in all likelihood, doesn't need rescuing," Professor McGonagall said. "Perhaps a patronus message would be a less drastic first step?"

Tonks felt a bristle of indignation, but somewhere not even especially deep inside she knew McGonagall was right. Even Mad-Eye, crown prince of paranoia, hadn't suspected anything was amiss – she'd just leapt to conclusions. She hadn't even _thought_ of the idea of reprisals until Molly had put the idea in her head, and why? Because it was a panicked reaction, not one based on logic and evidence and reason. All the things she was trained in, all the things she should have listened to, rather than going with some knee-jerk response.

She ran a hand over her face, sighing in irritation at herself. Isaiah had said Greyback didn't care – she'd _seen_ Greyback herself, the epitome of not caring about his troops – and so why had she so quickly flown to believe something awful had happened the instant it was suggested?

Her stomach turned to ice as the thought flitted through her head that the answer was as obvious as it was mortifying: she'd rather believe Remus had been kidnapped by Death Eaters and werewolves than believe he was avoiding her. Even though he'd done it before. Even though Mad-Eye had said Remus didn't respond well to bad news. Even though she knew it was the logical, reasonable, conclusion.

She rolled her eyes, partly at herself for being so –

She wasn't even sure what the word was. Desperate? Yeah, that about covered it, she thought sheepishly. She ran a hand over her forehead, fingers shaking slightly as she pushed back her fringe. "Sorry," she muttered. "Just – panicked, I suppose."

"Perfectly understandable," Professor McGonagall said, her gaze kind as she readjusted her glasses on her nose. "It was a terrible business – so very young – "

She trailed off into a shudder, and abruptly Tonks felt not only ridiculous for thinking what she'd thought, but like she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else. Ideally, the Hog's Head, in bed, getting some evidently much-needed rest to try and revitalise her brain. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time," she said. Professor McGonagall opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and then changed her mind, and so Tonks offered her a goodbye and went back the way she'd come.

One corridor blended into another as she walked, lost in thoughts that drifted rather aimlessly between hopeless despondency and embarrassment, and as she rounded a corner and found 

Peeves cackling over something or other, she found she couldn't even drum up the enthusiasm to find out what he was up to. She should have known better, she thought. She could make all the excuses she wanted about being tired, on edge, that of course what she'd seen at the camp – both with Thomas and the other children – had her rattled, but really it was as simple as –

She stopped dead in the corridor as someone shouted 'ouch!', and the head of Harry Potter appeared in front of her, bobbing up and down on the spot as if he was – well, hopping. "Harry?"

He fell – evidently he was as startled to see her as she was to find bits of him floating down the corridor – then scrambled back to his feet, hastily rearranging his hair and pushing his glasses back up his nose, blushing rather furiously. "What are you doing here?" he said.

On any other day, Tonks might have found the display endearing, might have laughed, but as it was, she was too tired, too worried to muster the requisite cheer for anything other than a straight response. "I came to see Dumbledore," she said.

"His office isn't here," Harry said, "it's round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle – "

"I know," Tonks said, almost amused that Harry thought she'd never been sent there in her days as a student. "He's not there. Apparently he's gone away again."

"Has he?" Something sparked in Harry's eyes, and he leant in a little. "Hey, you don't know where he goes, I suppose?"

"No," Tonks said, because none of them did, not really. That was one of the most infuriating things – they were all of them fighting, but pieces of a puzzle they didn't really understand. It was for their own – and everyone else's – safety, she knew that, but she was no more pleased about it than Harry's frown suggested he was.

"What did you want to see him about?" he said.

"Nothing in particular," Tonks said, picking absentmindedly at her sleeve as she lied. "I just thought he might know what's going on – I've heard rumours – people getting hurt – "

"Yeah, I know, it's been in all the papers," Harry said. "That little kid trying to kill his – "

"The _Prophet_'s often behind the times," she said, half picturing the reactions when the news of what had happened to Thomas Montgomery broke. The magical world always had a particularly vehement response to werewolves – the same one she'd had initially, she supposed, that all were damned by the actions of a few. The Death Eaters certainly knew what they were doing. There could be few things most witches and wizards feared more than having a child taken from them like that.

Tonks was vaguely aware that Harry was staring at her inquisitively, and she shook the thought she'd been momentarily lost in away as another rather more pointed one took its place. "You haven't had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?" she said. She didn't want to be too obvious, mention his name, but it was worth a –

"No one from the Order writes to me anymore," Harry said, "not since Sirius – "

So that was it, then, she thought. Her last hope crumbled before it had even really had a chance to form, and before she knew it, there they were again, the tears that had been threatening all week, prickling in her eyes. She bit her lip, trying to force them back because what use were they? "I'm sorry," Harry muttered. "I mean – I miss him, as well – "

"What?" she said, absently, although she supposed she didn't have a monopoly on missing Remus. That was what she'd meant to say to Isaiah, that yes Remus may be a werewolf, but there were plenty of people who cared – more than – about him. Not that he was here to see it. Her throat was abruptly tight again at the thought. Where _was_ he? "Well – I'll see you around, Harry," she said, and turned and walked away before he could see her wiping the tears from her eyes.

Tonks navigated the corridors, trying to shake off her thoughts, telling herself to get a grip, and by the time she hit the cold air of the grounds, she'd mostly succeeded. Once outside the castle, she Apparated back to Hogsmeade, staggering a little as she appeared at the Hog's Head, startling Aberforth as he tickled Marvin's ears. "Wotcher," she muttered, without much enthusiasm. "I'll be in bed if anyone – "

"Oy Tonks," he said, his eyes bulging slightly. "There's – "

She waved whatever he was about to say aside – it was probably nothing more than some update on Marvin and his blood pressure situation – and headed up the wonky stairs, the thought of collapsing on her bed the only one in her head.

When she saw him, she gasped.

"Tonks – "

His voice was hoarse, worn, and he stood, hunched impossibly low down into his overcoat. His face was almost grey, his clothes hung off him, and he eyed her warily from his position by the doorframe. She'd pictured this – it was one of the things that had kept her up the past – however many nights it had been – she'd thought of endless clever things to say, things filled with warmth and love and relief, but something about the way he was looking at her, the way he made no move towards her, made them dissolve like paint in water. The only thing she could think to say was, "Where the hell have you been?"

Remus ran a hand over his face, gestured to the door, and she moved past him down the corridor and opened it, stepping inside and flicking her wand at the curtains to open them, let in some light. Dust danced in the air and she watched it as he closed the door behind him, and there was a feeling in her chest, some tightness that furled and held. Partly she thought it was anger – anger that he'd done this again – abandoned her to her panicked thoughts and then just shown up, and partly it was the tears she could feel, building in her throat. The rest was fear, plain and simple, fear that he wasn't the same man he had been, didn't have the same feelings, that something was irrevocably changed, because nothing about him seemed even recognisable, let alone familiar.

She turned, looked at him, trying to reassure herself, to find some kind of comfort or solace, proof that she was leaping to ludicrous conclusions again, but he avoided her eyes, instead fixed his gaze on the desk, seemingly fascinated by the lamp. She waited, almost wanting to laugh because she'd done nothing _but_ wait for him lately, and as the seconds ticked past unaccompanied, irritation took up residence in her head alongside her screaming thoughts. "Should I just guess?" she said, her tone harsher than she meant it to be, wanted it to be, because Merlin she was pleased to see him, to know he was safe, but – "I know you weren't at home, or at your mum's, or at the Burrow, or the pub because I've been there. And I know you weren't with the werewolves because I was there too. Waiting for you to see how you were."

Remus swallowed, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, and she wondered if she should be worried that he hadn't taken it off. "I was at Godric's Hollow," he said, and curiosity battled with the urge to tell him – to shout at him – that she'd waited for him for _hours_ in the rain.

"Godric's Hollow?" she said, curiosity winning out. "Why on earth would you go there?"

"I needed to – er – think."

"Do I get to hear what, or..?" She balled her fists as she looked at him, her ire rising as the silence lagged. "I think you owe me an explanation," she said eventually. "Or an apology, at least. I was _out of_ _my mind_ with worry, imagining all sorts of things – I've just been to Hogwarts and made a fool of myself in front of McGonagall, and by now half the Order probably thinks I've lost it."

He met her eye, frowning, and then his gaze flickered away again. "Tonks, I didn't mean to – it's just – " He paused, looked down at the floor, and the silence seemed to stretch, deadly and endless. She wanted to tell him to go on, but at the same time, the trepidation about what he might say was paralysing. She'd imagined this – tested out what she'd say, filled in his lines, but –

There was something different about him, and she couldn't quite think what, but it made her stomach shrink and cower. He looked up slowly, achingly slowly, caught her gaze. In his, there was something new, something infinite, something she suspected he'd always kept hidden before, and it took her a moment to recognise it for what it was: sorrow. Every muscle in her body clenched. She wanted to run over – hug him – tell him that everything would be all right, but something –

"I need to be on my own," he said.

"I understand that – I mean it was horrible, what happened, but – "

"No – " he said, quickly. "I mean – I mean permanently."

"Permanently?"

The word seemed too loud in the room, and all of a sudden, everything she'd previously felt dissipated, as if it had never existed, as if there was no other feeling, no other thought, than the one that pounded out a hollow, defunct warning simultaneously in her head and her chest. Permanently? On his own? He couldn't mean – he wouldn't – after everything – he _couldn't_ –

She blinked at him, trying to see some flicker on his face that would indicate he meant something other than what she thought he did, something other than the thing that made her hands shake and her chest feel tighter. "Remus – "

"You've seen – you've seen what I'm capable of," he said, his voice almost a plea.

"What? Throwing a couple of punches and breaking the noses of people who deserved it?"

"No," he said, closing his eyes. "You've seen what _werewolves_ are capable of, and I can't allow – I shouldn't have – "

He sighed, resignation and anger turned in on himself mingling together, ran a hand over his face and then looked at her, his eyes half-hidden by their lids as if he was –

Ashamed.

It made her heart thunk, because how could he think that she thought he was in any way capable of the kind of thing that had happened to Thomas? She almost wanted to hit him. Instead she moved towards him, placing her fingers gingerly on his arm, pretending that she didn't feel him flinch. "You're nothing like them – you _couldn't_ be. It's – it's like saying I'm like the Death Eaters just because I'm a witch – "

"No," he said, moving away, out from underneath her touch, "it's not. Death Eaters choose what they become, this is – different."

He stalled, flinched again, as if from his own thoughts, and she wanted to say something, but couldn't think quite what, because all of her brain was focused on watching him, looking for some hint that he didn't really mean it, that he might be persuaded. But the more she looked at him, the more resolute he seemed. "I've always known what I am," he said, "and for a while I let myself believe that I wasn't truly like that, that I could have – offer you – a normal life, that being a werewolf and everything that went along with it was nothing more than an inconvenience. But – it's a lie, Tonks and – what they did – _that's_ what I'm capable of, _that's_ who I am, and to say you'll be better off without me is – well, the grandest and grossest of understatements."

"Remus – "

"I didn't come here to argue about it," he said quietly, and it was that, more than anything, that made all the protests she'd been about to make stall. "I've made my decision, and – I'll try – I'll try not to make things difficult for you – or more difficult than they need to be. I'll request that we're not assigned anywhere together and if you'd prefer I stayed away from meetings I will. I mean I can't imagine I'll be overly welcome anyway – "

"So I don't get a say in this?"

"Tonks," he said, and her name fell from his lips so softly, so full of aching longing, it made her heart fracture. "You're – " He swallowed, heavily, looked away, his eyes tracing some 

pattern on the desk, across the window, up the curtains and back again. "There aren't the words," he said, "to explain what you – what your affection, has meant to me, but – "

"_Affection_, Remus?" she said, aghast, and he clenched his fist so tight his skin turned white. "It's not affection, it's l– "

"I said I'd try not to make things difficult for you," he said, and his voice was so abrupt, it froze everything she might have been about to say on her lips. "I would appreciate it if you returned the favour."

His gaze was steely – there was regret in it too, so much it made her knees feel shaky – but no doubt, and there was something else. His eyes were different. They were filled with things she'd only seen flickers of before, doleful sadness, shame – but the thing that really struck was what was missing. Normally, when she looked into his eyes, there was that glimmer, that spark, that thing she'd come to think of as something so intrinsically him it'd always be there. It was mischief and flirtation and promises and jokes, wry and warm by twist and turn –

It presented itself a myriad ways, but really what it was was hope. And now that was gone. The thought made her breath catch. "Remus, this is just – "

Her voice sounded hollow, devoid of emotion, or full of too many – she wasn't sure which – and she swallowed, trying to clear the tears that were lodged in her throat, put it all together in her head, figure out some way to convince him, something to say that would show him the insanity of this, how much she loved him, how much there was left to hope for in spite of everything that had happened.

But she'd been all over the country looking for him, had just told him, hadn't she, that she'd been out of her mind with worry for him – and more than that, she was _visibly_ utterly colourless without him. If actions were supposed to speak louder than words, hers had positively screamed, hadn't they? And yet he couldn't hear it.

She'd never felt so utterly defeated, and she supposed it showed, because Remus ran a hand through his shaggy hair, his face crumpled in on a frown. "I should go," he said. His fingertips flitted over his eyelids, and then he made for the door, grasping at the handle as if he wasn't quite sure where it was.

She told herself to say something before it was too late, to at least try, but –

There, at the door, he hesitated. "I have – " He swallowed, looked back, and her heart was a cacophony in her chest. "I have loved you very greatly," he said. He tried a smile, but it faltered before making it halfway, lost in the tightening of his jaw. "And – of everything I've ever done, I'll – " He stopped again, looked down, frowning ever deeper, his fingers flexing on the doorknob. "I just – I'm sorry," he said, words little more than a whisper, "for the hurt I've caused you, and – I'll always regret that, more than anything."

Before she could think of anything to say, the door was open, and he was gone.

Tonks stood in the doorway, waiting for the tears.

They'd been right there in her throat – but to her immense surprise, that was where they stayed. She felt –

She wondered what the word was. She should be wailing on the floor like a banshee, feel like the fabric of her existence had just been ripped out from underneath her, or at the very least be tossing on an ocean of romance-novel heartbreak clichés, because Remus was _everything_ to her. But the only thing she really felt was –

Inevitability.

She'd always known, hadn't she, that he'd do something like this?

That was why she'd panicked – twice – when he disappeared, because from the outset, when he'd sat on the sofa at Grimmauld and outlined his shortcomings, asked if she was certain, it had always been there. This – tentative something, this sense that he was always unsure, because –

Sirius had said it, hadn't he? His words rang now as loud and clear as if he was standing next to her: _who he is, being a werewolf, it's a big part of him, but how he deals with it is bigger._

For a second, she wasn't quite sure why that was important, why it was suddenly the only thought in her head, but then, as she stared at the wall opposite, a portrait of goats playing Exploding Snap blinked at her, and pieces of the thing she couldn't quite fathom started to slot together. Of course Remus was always going to do something like this, because –

Because that was who he was.

He was the kind of man who had an unerring, unshakable desire to protect people. It had always been there, in his stories, Sirius', how he'd never let his friends see him anything other than coping. She'd seen it herself, in the way he'd been evasive, had never really answered her questions – he'd given her the impression of having been open and honest about how he felt about being a werewolf, because he knew that was what she wanted, but he never _really_ had been. He'd always shielded them – all of them – from what he thought he was.

And what he thought he was had just become exponentially worse.

Suddenly, it all seemed so very blindingly, _catastrophically,_ obvious. _That's_ what Sirius had meant. Being a werewolf was a massive part of him – but who he was, how he responded –

Remus was someone who always put himself at the bottom of the pile, was astounded when people liked him, did everything he could to protect those he cared about from simply knowing the realities of his life. And it was worse than that, because – well, she'd even thought it, hadn't she, back at the camp? He was also someone who'd always do what he thought was right, even if that was – or perhaps _because_ it was – stupid and reckless and noble.

And this _was_ all of those things. Noble, because the idea that he was prepared to sacrifice his own happiness for some perceived benefit to her was nothing if not that, reckless, because only someone who'd made a decision like this quickly or working on half the facts could have come to the conclusion she'd be better off without him, and stupid because –

Because he was wrong. A whole whirling galaxy of wrong. Because who he _thought_ he was wasn't actually who he was at all. He'd said he was the same as the feral werewolves, that _that_ was who he truly was, but it _wasn't_. He was the man Dumbledore trusted to be strong 

enough to be an inspiration to those werewolves lost in the forest, and the boy Sirius and James had thought was worth going to extraordinary lengths for. He was pacing in worry, and knowing how she took her tea long before she told him – he was hyacinths and stories and star-gazing.

He and Greyback might share the same nature, but how they'd responded to it couldn't be more different. And that – that was what counted. Remus might be a werewolf, but he was also the kind of man who'd go out of his way to protect people from himself – whether that meant locking himself in a cellar, taking a potion he hated, or – leaving them. The very fact of his actions discounted any similarities that existed between him and those who chose to do the very worst things their instincts told them to.

Tonks tried to force her fractured thoughts into some kind of whole, stitching together his words with how he'd acted, but that was it, wasn't it? He was a stupid, reckless, wonderfully noble –

_Disaster._

She almost wanted to laugh. Remus had left her for the very reasons she loved him – because he was fantastically selfless, and endlessly kind, and because he never had much of a thought in his head for himself. And he'd got it wrong – amazingly so, but –

There was a bit of her that loved him more for loving her enough to be prepared to do something like this.

She tried to muster her scattered thoughts, trying to see a flaw in her logic, but there wasn't one – at least not one she could find. Of three things, she was reasonably certain. One, Remus loved her, greatly. Two, she loved him, just as much, and more than ever. Three, he was a werewolf, which apparently, _he_ thought counted more than the other two –

But Tonks didn't. Not by a long stretch. And it was just a matter of finding a way to show him, to prove that she was right. Because if she did anything else, then Greyback had won, hadn't he? If she did anything else, it was like saying to Isaiah and all the others that there _was_ nothing to hope for, that they had no other choices, that they were damned by what they 

were, and nothing they ever did counted for more than that. And she didn't believe that. _Wouldn't_ believe that.

She wasn't sure quite what she'd do, because Sirius had been right about Remus being a stubborn bastard too – but she wouldn't give up. Never. Not until that thing, that thing she thought of as so intrinsically and wonderfully him was back in his eyes.

Remus Lupin was a disaster, she thought. But she'd make him hope again.

* * *

**A/N: Been a while... I hope I haven't forgotten how to do this ;). Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and for your patience. Anyone who leaves a word or two about this one gets a rainy snog with a werewolf of their choosing. Romantic Remus is all about kissing umbrella style, Mischievous Remus favours a spot of phone-box hiding and steaming up the windows, and Sexy Remus leaves you with grass in your hair and some explaining to do ;). I'm getting a lot of questions about how much more of this there is to go, and... I think one or two more chapters. Depending on how tough it is for me to let go, lol.**


	25. Chain Reaction

**A/N: **Borrowed a couple of lines directly from chapters 27 & 28 of The Half Blood Prince – I'm sure you'll recognise them when you get there and I claim no ownership of them.

* * *

The sunshine trickled down through the clouds, and Tonks took a moment to steady herself on the grass and then rapped on the faded wooden door. She'd been here so often recently that she was a bit surprised the impression of her fingers wasn't already indelibly imprinted on the paintwork.

It had been two months since Remus had told her he wanted to be permanently alone. For a week she'd floundered, unsure what to do, and then she'd decided that Remus wasn't entitled to make those kinds of decisions on his own. After that, every day she'd contacted him in some way to let him know she disagreed with his assessment of the situation, and always would. She'd sent him owls of differing and occasionally volatile temperaments, thrown screwed up bits of paper with notes on through the Floo, and when she was free, when she knew he was likely to be here, she came and knocked on his door.

Sometimes he answered. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he threw out excuses she knew were little more than that. Every time she saw him he looked a little bit better than he had before, though, and although his answer and his certainty hadn't appeared to waver, that had been her incentive to keep trying, to keep believing that the Remus who pressed her to doors and made her heart canter, who looked at her with mischief a man half his age would be proud to muster, was still in there somewhere.

She counted thirty seconds in her head, glanced at the window, then knocked again.

"I know you're in there, Remus," she said. "I can see the curtains twitching."

The door opened with a forlorn creak, letting the sunlight filter onto the shabby carpet, and Remus leant on the doorframe, a glass of Firewhiskey dangling from his fingers. His other hand made for the bridge of his nose, pressed the skin so hard it blanched, and she fixed him with a grin and a cheerful, "Wotcher."

"What do you want, Tonks?"

"You know what I want. You."

"Well I'm afraid _werewolf_ is off the menu."

"Oh, you're in a droll mood today. Good. Dejected was wearing thin. Thought that mission with Moody to the Hebrides would perk you up a bit."

Remus' eyes disappeared behind his hand, and she thought she heard him mutter something about _insufferable cheerfulness_, although it may well have been _incipient wilfulness_, she wasn't quite sure. Either way it was an improvement on two weeks ago, when he'd hidden behind the sofa, only the toes of his shoes poking out and giving him away.

"Tonks," he said, his voice weary. "I believe I've made myself perfectly plain – "

"And I think _I've_ demonstrated that I think your reasoning is completely bollocks."

" – and I really think your energy might be better expended – "

"S'my energy. I can do what I want with it."

" – on a task a shade less hopeless than this. I mean what exactly do you think this is going to achieve?"

"Maybe nothing," she said, shrugging. "That's not the point."

"What is, then?"

"You can give up all you want and make your excuses, but I – "

"Tonks – "

"If I have to say it a million times before you believe it I will. And if you need to stew in your windmill a bit longer – "

"I'm not – "

" – then that's fine. I can be patient."

"You can be persistent."

"You know how to make me stop this nonsense, Remus."

He looked at her, his eyes worn around the edges and his gaze the same mix of apologetic and irritated it had been since the day she'd first shown up, considered her for a moment and then shook his head.

"Shall we say the same time tomorrow, then?" she said, and turned away to Disapparate before Remus could see the hurt flicker across her face.

* * *

The wind ruffled at the grass, and Tonks knocked lightly on the door. She was late, held up at work, and the sun had almost set, was casting long, lazy shadow from the trees and the hedges. Still, it was a beautiful place, and even the windmill's shabbiness and the thought of Remus rejecting her again couldn't detract from it.

The door opened almost immediately, and Tonks wondered if he'd been waiting, if he'd been worried that she hadn't arrived exactly when she'd said she would. She looked up, smiled, and Remus rolled his eyes. She thought she saw relief in there somewhere with the weary exasperation, but she wasn't sure if that was just wishful thinking, her heart seeing what it longed to, rather than what was really there.

"I really can't see what you're trying to prove with all this."

"I'd have thought it was obvious, Remus. I just want you to know how I feel," she said. "And you won't listen to words so...."

She watched his fingers fall away from the doorknob and curl into a compulsive ball at his side, and wondered what she'd do if he never changed his mind, if she really would carry on with this forever. In all honesty she'd thought that a couple of weeks would do it, that the first half-dozen owls and messages would make him see that she wasn't going to give up on him as easily as he'd given up on himself, that a couple of visits would make his apparent irritation turn to amusement and from there they'd slowly weave their way back together. He certainly was a stubborn bastard, although she could well understand why the things he'd seen at the werewolf camp were lingering like they had. Thomas Montgomery wasn't a horror he was likely to forget, and she didn't want him to, just accept that the thing he thought he was was nothing more than his own mind drawing the wrong conclusions out of fear.

"I appreciate the gesture," he said, "but my mind is made up."

"You've got a visitor."

"I know, she's – "

"No, there."

Tonks gestured behind him to the shimmering phoenix that had materialised and was perched on the back of his sofa, and Remus turned, his eyes widening a little. "Oh."

For a second he was torn, looking from it to her, and then he sighed and went over. Tonks followed him in, and as she closed the door he glanced back and opened his mouth, presumably to protest her doing the very thing he'd feared she would. "What?" she said. "It's from Dumbledore. It could be important."

Remus sighed, bent so the phoenix could whisper in his ear, his fingers tightening on the threadbare sofa's arm. He frowned as he listened, staring fixedly at the frayed carpet as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen, steadfastly ignoring Tonks' inquisitive gaze. Then he nodded, and the phoenix flexed its wings and soared towards the window, disappearing through it like a ghost.

Remus straightened up and Tonks moved closer, trying not to think of the series of events that had been set in motion the last time they were together and got a message from Dumbledore. "Did Dumbledore know you were going to be here?" Remus said.

"No, why?"

"It was for both of us. He's going away again and he wants you and I to meet Bill Weasley and patrol Hogwarts until he returns. Minerva is expecting us. We need to send a message to let her know we're – "

Tonks took out her wand, and Remus paused, wincing in expectation as she Conjured her patronus. As it formed in the middle of the lounge, long rangy legs and a cautious but warm expression, Remus eyed it with disdain, his forehead wrinkled as if he was almost afraid of what he was seeing. "It's still – "

"You? Of course it is. It probably always will be."

She knelt down beside it, whispered, 'we're on our way' and sent it galloping off into the air in search of Professor McGonagall. She smiled at Remus, gestured to the door, but he was still frowning, tracing the place where her werewolf patronus had been, his eyes a little narrowed. "Did you arrange this?"

"Arrange what?"

"I asked that we not be on duty together for the foreseeable."

"I know. Do you know how many nights I've spent listening to Arthur go on about something called a _mouli grater_?"

"Seems a little strange that Dumbledore would request us both when he knows the situation."

"I was top of the class in a lot of things but performing mind-control on Albus Dumbledore is still a bit beyond me. You can put up with me for a couple of hours, can't you?"

"Tonks – I just think that it isn't _helpful_ – "

"This isn't about us."

She went over to the door, held it open pointedly and waved Remus through.

"There is no _us_."

"Yes there is."

"No there – " He paused outside on the grass, sealing the security charms behind them before looking at her. "Being with you was a hundred different kinds of wrong and – "

Tonks rolled her eyes and Apparated to the Hogwarts boundary. She quickly checked the surrounding area, but the air was still and the only person she could see was Professor McGonagall, making her way down from the front entrance. Remus appeared with a pop, his jaw tight and his expression fixed in irritation.

"I'd prefer it if you'd let me finish a sentence."

"I'd prefer it if you stopped being such a bloody moron."

Remus ground his teeth, his fist balled and turning white at his side. "Tonks, it doesn't matter what you say – or do – my opinion on this matter is not going to change."

"Listen up, Remus. You don't get to tell me what's right and wrong for me."

"In this instance I believe I do."

"Especially in this instance you don't."

"What? Why – "

"Because you're not thinking straight. You're letting your prejudice and your stupid falsely noble impulses get in the way."

"My prej – "

There was another pop, and Bill Weasley appeared a few feet away, the fang earring he was wearing swaying slightly as he settled on a patch of rocky ground. He looked from Tonks, hands on her hips, to Remus' angry, pursed lips, and grimaced with apology. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

"You didn't," Remus said, with a rather forced, polite smile.

"No," Tonks said. "Besides, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk about this later."

Remus looked as if he was about to protest and then swallowed it as Professor McGonagall approached, instead crossing his arms and looking every inch like a sulking schoolboy.

"You're all here, I see," Professor McGonagall said, her eyes scanning the ground beyond them and her wand firmly clutched before her. She muttered a complex incantation, then waved them through the invisible barrier that protected Hogwarts from all comers, re-sealing it behind them and casting another fierce glance at the horizon. "Albus has just left. He's not sure how long he'll be, I'm afraid. Filius and I have already made a preliminary sweep and everything appears to be quiet, except for a group of Hufflepuffs playing silly beggars in the library with some Weasley product or other. They assure me it's entirely legal, but – " Her eyes flickered to Bill and then she readjusted her glasses and gestured back towards the school. "Shall we?"

* * *

The sky beyond the stained glass in the corridor had darkened, and Tonks strode down the corridor, meeting Bill on the corner near the Entrance Hall. "Anything?"

"Nope," he said, sighing. "You know in my day, you could rely on finding at least one couple snogging behind a statue or someone setting farting charms on the benches."

"Oh, so you remember that?" Tonks said, and he grinned, spinning his wand on the palm of his hand.

"It was classy magic."

"That's me."

Bill rested against the wall, glancing down the empty halls. "Do you know where he goes? Dumbledore?"

"I'm not sure anyone does," Tonks said. "Moody keeps saying it's no-one's business and that it's probably too dangerous and Dumbledore doesn't want to take unnecessary risks. He wouldn't leave Hogwarts unless it was really important, though."

"Hmm." Bill straightened up a little, met her eye with a smile. "It's nice to see you looking more cheerful, anyway."

"I look more cheerful?"

"Yeah," he said. "Mum's been really worried about you. She'll be pleased to see you looking better."

"I didn't mean for anyone to worry," Tonks said, studying her feet. "It's pretty tricky to avoid it, though, when your mood's written all over your hair."

"What is going on with that?"

"I have no idea. It's weird, though – your mum used to look at me like she was trying to will my hair a sensible colour and now she's concerned precisely because it is."

"I half expect to wake up every morning with a new haircut," Bill said. "She keeps leaving me cuttings from the _Witch Weekly Wedding Special_ and dropping hints about how much better my robes would look with a nice short back and sides. You're still coming, right, to the wedding?"

"Of course. Wouldn't miss it."

"I've got this friend from Egypt – you might like him. He's cool. Kind of good looking if you like tall, dark and perfect."

"Thanks," Tonks said, smiling, "but – I think I'm –"

She stalled, wondering what the word was, and after a moment looked up and met Bill's eye, shrugging.

"Spoken for?"

"Something like that. Even if he doesn't actually, you know, want to speak _to me_ at the moment."

"Talking of."

Bill indicated the hall with a nod, and she followed his gaze to where Remus was making his way towards them. "Anything?" Tonks said.

"N – " Remus froze, the word barely formed on his lips. "What was that?"

"What?"

"I heard something. This way I think."

He indicated the corridor, and with wands extended they followed him to the foot of the stairs. Tonks listened, hard, and at first she couldn't hear anything but the sounds of the castle's usual creaks and Peeves' cackle somewhere in the distance.

And then there it was. Footsteps. _Hurried_ footsteps.

They set off at a run, and then there were voices, gambolling towards them, bouncing off the walls. They grew louder, more urgent and panicked, and Bill inclined his head as he ran. "Is that – is that Ginny?"

"Ginny?"

"And – Ron?"

They headed up a flight of stairs, darted past startled paintings who clutched at their nightgowns, disgruntled to be woken from their slumber, and the voices became clearer, easier to distinguish.

"We should find Professor McGonagall."

"No, we need to see what Malfoy's up to. Slimy git."

"When I see Fred and George I'm going to – "

Tonks sprinted around the corner –

"Ouff!"

– and collided with the solid form of Ron Weasley, staggering a little into Remus as he skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs. He righted her quickly, turned his attention to the three distraught and angry faces in front of them. "Ron? Ginny? Neville?"

"Professor, there's – "

"It's Malfoy – "

"He's – Harry was right. We have to do something!"

"Calm down. Someone – Ginny – tell us what happened."

Ginny gulped a breath, pushed her hair out of her face and pointed down the corridor. "Dumbledore left with Harry and he told us to keep an eye on Malfoy. And we did – he was in the Room of Requirement, you know the one that – "

"I'm familiar with it."

"Right. Well Malfoy, he used something in there to let people in. Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters?" Tonks said, leaning in. "Are you sure?"

"Well – he used the darkness powder – that's how he got past us. We'd have hexed him to hell and back if he hadn't – but we think they had the masks and – who else would they be? Who else would have to sneak in? Or want to?"

"How many?" Tonks said, and Remus looked at her, his eyes worried.

"I don't know. Four or five?"

Ginny looked to Ron and Neville for agreement, and Ron nodded. Panic traversed Remus' face and then abruptly disappeared. "Which way did they go?" he said.

"That way," Neville said, pointing the direction they'd been running.

"Come on!" Ginny said, practically dancing on the spot next to him, her eyes darting down the long corridor as if she could see beyond it if she just willed it hard enough. "We're wasting time!"

"They were – they were going for the Astronomy Tower," Neville said. "I heard one of them say it."

"Right," Bill said. "You lot go to the common room and wait there until – "

"No way!"

"You've got to be joking," Ron said.

"They're getting _away_!"

"You're too young to be mixed up in – "

"If there are Death Eaters in the castle we don't have time for a debate," Remus said, cutting Bill's protest off. Tonks met his eye and nodded.

"Stay behind us," she said. "Nothing stupid, you hear me? Stay behind us or your mum and your gran will take it in turns to kill me."

She looked at each face in turn. Neville's lips were staunch and white, Ron's eyes frightened but almost indignant, Ginny's angry and impatient. They all nodded. "Right."

They ran, their steps impossibly noisy and yet lonely-sounding on the stone floor as they hurtled down the corridor. The walls span into a morass, and each painting that pointed the way and stammered in surprise just seemed to emphasise how potentially awful this could be. Death Eaters in Hogwarts. It was almost unimaginable, and yet –

They hit the corner hard, Neville skidded, and Remus caught him by the elbow and dragged him along, narrowly missing colliding with the wall himself. And then Tonks saw them. There they were, cloaks billowing as they ran down the corridor towards the tower. Tonks counted them – four, five, six? – it was hard to say while they were all moving, a jumble of cloaks and limbs. One of the Death Eaters looked back, realised they were being chased and there was frantic discussion, raised voices and wild gestures. Tonks fired a shot, thinking if she could trip one that might take the rest of them out too, and it worked – she sent a Death Eater she couldn't recognise sprawling into the wall. Draco Malfoy shoved him out of the way and they scattered, taking cover behind statues and throwing a handful of spells down the hall.

"If they're heading – " She ducked a spell and it exploded on the wall behind her. " – for the tower they'll be cornered. Everyone stay together but don't let them surround us."

She inched forward, throwing up a shield charm, and a window shattered above Bill's head, covering them all in shards of stained glass. The Death Eaters took their moment, disappeared around the corner and they followed, firing spells, until the spiral staircase leading up to the top of the Astronomy Tower was right in front of them. A flicker of a cloak disappeared around the turn of the wall, and at the base stood a clutch of Death Eaters, slightly out of breath from the run and the skirmish.

Tonks flattened into a nook in the wall, took them in one by one. The first was stocky, wore a mask, another vast with a shock of thick, blonde hair. Names rioted in her head but she didn't have enough to recognise either of them, but next to them stood Alecto and Amycus Carrow, wands drawn, giggling to each other with eager, greedy eyes. Not a good sign, she thought, and then she saw a face that made her heart skid in her chest.

Greyback.

"Look, they found some friends," Alecto said, and before Tonks had time to properly assess the situation, the lights went out.

The first shot didn't come from Alecto and Amycus's direction, but from the corner behind the entrance to the staircase. It blazed red, illuminating the person who had fired it: Draco Malfoy, his face contorted and angry. "Stepping out from Potter's shadow, Weasley? I see you brought your sister too, in case you can't remember how to cast a spell."

Ron shouted "_Stupefy_!", but Draco just ducked, laughing, out of the way, and then the corridor was ablaze. Spells ricocheted off the wall behind Tonks' head, showering them all in a haze of pebbles and dust, and she ducked, Conjured a lantern, set it hanging in the air in the hope of giving them a look at least at what was coming.

Bill was at her side, Ginny and Neville behind them both, and they fired back at the Death Eaters, trying to deflect the jets of red and green light that rained down towards them.

After a moment it became apparent that one of the unfamiliar Death Eaters was in something of a frenzy, not aiming for anyone or anything in particular, just firing mindlessly at the air. Tonks dodged as a shot of green light headed for her, inching along the wall towards Remus as Bill leapt in front of Ginny, firing spells at Alecto. She danced out of the way, firing them back at an alarming rate, and Remus countered Amycus' attack while Ron and Draco traded shots and insults at the same rate. As she got closer, Tonks could see that although he was duelling with Amycus, Remus' eyes kept darting to the shadows, where Greyback was lurking, watching it all with his malevolent sneer as he crouched.

"Remus – " She threw up a shield, and Alecto's spells bounced back at her, deflecting a couple of shots from the blonde on the way. "One of them went up the stairs. Have you got this if I – "

"What is the meaning of – " Professor McGonagall ran into the fray, firing binding spells at Alecto, then Amycus, a look of fierce concentration and indignation behind her glasses as she caught them both off guard. "In a school! You should be ashamed of yourselves."

Professor Flitwick was on her heels, and as he dashed in to take on the heavy-jawed Death Eater, he tossed cheerful hellos to Tonks, Bill and Remus over his shoulder.

"And as for you, Mr Malfoy – "

Professor McGonagall was abruptly cut off by Ginny's shriek and Tonks turned in time to see Greyback lurch towards her. She fired a powerful stunning spell but missed, and Greyback's long nails grasped for Ginny's arm. Bill barrelled into him, but Greyback barely moved, his muscles taut as rock beneath his robes. "You get away from her or I'll – "

The next moment was chaos. Remus pulled Ginny behind him, but then quickly came under attack as Amycus set fire to McGonagall's ropes to free himself. He and the Death Eater from the corner rained down a shower of red sparks that spluttered in the air, illuminating the grey in Remus' hair and the fear in Ginny's eyes. While Draco was distracted Ron made a break for Greyback too, his wand raised like a sword as Greyback's fingers closed around Bill's throat, but before Ron could get there Greyback tossed Bill into the wall with such force that the stone fractured and crumbled. "No!"

"Ron – "

Tonks reached for him, grasping desperately for any part of his clothes to pull him back, but Alecto was free too and quickly fired spell after spell. Tonks deflected them, irritated, and then abruptly in pain as she missed a hex and it set fire to her sleeve. The blonde laughed manically, sent jets of blue and purple into the air, maybe aiming for Flitwick, maybe her, and Tonks quickly extinguished the flames on her arm and then aimed a stunner square at the blonde's chest. She caught him on the shoulder, but it was a glancing blow and he just reeled back. She used the moment to search in the dark for Ron, for Bill, for Greyback, and a flash of light illuminated them.

Bill was staggering, Ron was behind him at least, but Greyback was poised –

"Nymphadora – " Professor McGonagall was at her side, ducking as she returned fire, caught the Death Eater with the thick jaw on the ankle with a stinging hex and making him leap and howl. "I thought we could hold them but I'm going to send Filius for Severus."

"They're protecting someone up the Tower. I'm going to try and get up there."

The Death Eater stopped hopping and fired at Neville, throwing light on Draco, who was flitting behind Alecto and Amycus, an odd mixture of nerves and rage on his face as he sent spells at Ron, keeping him pinned against the wall. Tonks eyed the doorway and abruptly someone appeared.

Tonks recognised him – Gibbon –

"It's done. He's on his way."

"Draco – "

"I _know_."

Draco looked towards the stairs, Ron apparently forgotten. Whatever was going on up there was important, Tonks thought, more important, maybe, than what was happening here. But before she could make a proper move for the stairs, wandlight flashed, affording snippets of what was going on across the corridor. Greyback's arm was drawn back, fingers splayed like claws, mouth open and then he lurched.

"Bill!"

The cry split the dark and wandlight flashed again, flicking into the corner so she could see Bill as he crumpled to the ground. Darkness sank for a second and then Greyback stood up, illuminated by the spells firing all around him. Blood dripped from his mouth and his hands, and he licked at his teeth, a twisted smirk contorting his features.

"You bastard."

Ron leapt for Greyback, his hands fisted as if he didn't even intend to use his wand, and Remus sprang forth too. For a fraction of a second Tonks thought he had the same idea, but he grabbed a handful of Ron's shirt, forced him back. "Ron – Ron – listen to me – "

Whatever Remus said next was obliterated by a rolling cracking sound from above and a flurry of hexes from Alecto. Draco made for the stairs under Alecto's cover, stepping over Bill with a derisory snort and then taking the stairs two at a time, glancing back. "Come on!"

The blonde noted Remus with his back turned and there was a flash of green light –

But at the same moment Gibbon made to follow Draco. The spell hit him and he toppled like a plank and thudded onto the floor, unmoving, unblinking, unmistakably dead. Remus glanced at him, his eyes wide, and Tonks ducked a shot from Amycus, fired back a hex to sweep his feet out from under him. It worked, and in the ensuing moment of relative calm, she looked at Bill. His face and throat were slashed, his features distorted, and she couldn't tell if he was alive or –

And then she saw his arm twitch, and Moody's voice was loud in her head:

_The best thing you can do for the wounded is win the bloody fight._

She sprang towards Remus. He appeared to have Greyback contained at least, driving him back towards the wall. A spell from the heavy-jawed bloke ripped at her arm but she'd caused worst injuries to herself without trying so she ignored it, focusing on the blonde with the dodgy aim, trying to disarm him before he destroyed the walls entirely.

While she dealt with him she assessed the situation. Neville was duelling with Alecto, who caught him with a swipe of her wand. He cried out, staggered back against the wall, clutching at what looked like a gash in his stomach. Behind her, Tonks heard McGonagall gasp, and Ginny was on her knees at Bill's side, attempting rudimentary first aid probably picked up on the Quidditch pitch while Remus and Ron held Greyback at bay.

They were losing. Tonks could feel it. She fired everything she could think of at Alecto and Amycus to try and take them out, but they worked as a team and they were slick, practised, and it wasn't until McGonagall hit Alecto in the chest with a stunner that she could make any ground on the blonde. The air was clouded with dust and she could barely tell what was happening, could hear snatches of phrases, Ginny's desperate mutters to Bill, Ron's curses, Amycus saying something to the heavy-jawed Death Eater that changed his stance and the direction of his hexes, something about getting up there or missing everything. He grabbed Alecto and made for the stairwell. Greyback sneered, "Nice try, cub," at Remus and then he and the other followed.

There was a flash of light – Tonks assumed Remus had sent a spell after Greyback – and then Neville was running for the stairs.

"Nev – "

There was a crack – a stomach-turning crack – and Neville bounced, flew backwards, his feet meters off the ground. He hit the wall, collapsed against the foot of it, and McGonagall rushed over. "Longbottom? Are you all right? Can you – "

She ducked as the blonde – the only remaining member of the Death Eater party – fired at her, and at the same moment, Snape slid to a halt in the rubble.

"Up the stairs, Severus. Malfoy – "

"I'll deal with it."

He was gone in a flurry of cloak, and Remus looked down at Bill. "Tonks? He's – " His eyes flickered to Ron and Ginny, their expressions confused and shocked, even as they dodged hexes that bounced off the walls and fired at the blonde, then back to hers. " – hurt. Is there anything you can – I'll – "

She nodded and they swapped places, Remus making for the stairs to follow Snape.

There was another crack and Remus bounced, managed to arrest his own flight just before he sent Neville and McGonagall sprawling. "They've blocked the stairs. Reducto!"

He tried again, but nothing happened. "It's a powerful barrier spell but I should be able to – "

Tonks took comfort from the fact that Remus was still alive enough to speak, turned her attention to Bill. Ginny's eyes were wide with horror, and Ron clung to the wall, his eyes fixed on Bill as Tonks moved his hair back, assessing the damage to his neck.

The floor was disconcertingly red in the light from her wand, and she drew a slow pattern over his body, trying to close his wounds so she could get back to the blonde, help Remus with the stairs. "I'm going to do everything I can, OK?"

Ginny nodded frantically, swerving as the blonde sent a jet of blue in her direction.

"Will you s_top_ that!" McGonagall shouted, fired at the blonde, making him dodge and send yet another spell at the cracked and crumbling ceiling.

Whatever was happening at the top of the tower Snape needed their help, but Bill's wounds didn't seem to be responding to her spells, and Tonks tried again, pleading with nothing and no-one in particular for it to work. _Concentrate_, she thought. She couldn't let him die. Not in front of his brother and sister.

She shot a glance at Remus. He was pacing by the foot of the stairs, alternately trying to keep the blonde from firing and try the stairs, his wand movements sharp and precise as he threw spell after spell at the barrier. "Remus?" she said, and he noted her tone, looked over, raised an eyebrow in obvious inquiry about how she was doing with Bill's injuries. She shook her head. "That spell you did on me – at the Ministry – "

There was a low rumble, and at first she thought it was the spell, that he'd cast it so quickly she hadn't seen it. But it wasn't, it was rubble and stone breaking away from the ceiling.

"Everybody down!"

She fired a spell into the air, a barrier of her own, gritting her teeth and hoping it would hold as masonry cascaded.

It was over as soon as it started, and the blonde staggered a little, having taken a blow to the head. The air was thick, opaque with dust, and she blinked, trying to see everyone.

"Is everyone – "

"The barrier, I think it's – "

"I'll take over," McGonagall said, stepping briskly through the rubble. "Go, go! Ginerva, Ronald, if you wouldn't mind dealing with our cavalier friend."

Tonks sprinted for the stairs, willing herself not to trip on a brick or skid on scattered glass, and as she got there she heard urgent voices. "_Run_, Draco. Shut your mouth and _run_."

Snape and Malfoy hurtled down the stairs, and Remus flattened himself against the wall. "What hap – "

"Out of the way, Lupin."

"Sev – "

He cut himself off avoiding a shot of green light coming down the stairs, and abruptly the battle resumed, as if it had never quietened. Spells shot through the dusty air like threads, Ginny firing orange and gold at Amycus, matching him spell for spell, McGonagall standing over Bill as she returned fire on Alecto. Remus took the one with the heavy jaw, catching him on the wrist, and in the centre Tonks saw Harry, his face drawn but determined. Before she could even be surprised to see him Greyback lunged for him, caught him, bearing down on him with a ferocious gaze. Harry hit him in the chest and Greyback toppled back heavily against the wall.

Tonks aimed for the blonde again, catching him off-guard and making him stumble into Harry's path as he ran away from Greyback. Harry fired at him, and the blonde looked around, making some assessment, and then ran for the corridor. To Tonks' surprise, Harry followed. "Harry!"

McGonagall followed her gaze.

"Potter?" McGonagall called. "Potter!"

But Harry was gone.

"Come on. We're done here."

The shout came from Alecto, and one by one the Death Eaters picked their way through the rubble, forming a rough group. Greyback got to his feet and joined them, leering at Bill's prone form on the floor. "One more down," he said, and laughing they stumbled down the hall, firing spells over their shoulders that ricocheted and then dwindled in the dust.

Remus paused for a second against the wall, then moved to follow, and much as she'd have liked to take chase, make the Death Eaters and Greyback pay for what they'd done to Bill, to Neville, Tonks grabbed his sleeve. "Tonks, I have to – "

"Bill," she said. "He's still alive but I can't help him. We need to get him to the hospital wing. _Now_. And Neville's hurt – "

Remus' eyes darted to Neville, who was trying to prop himself up against what remained of the wall, his face ashen but blank with pain, blood on his hand as he clutched at his stomach.

"Where's – did Severus go after Potter?"

McGonagall's eyes were puzzled as she looked around. "And where's Filius? Was he here when the ceiling – he's not – in the rubble? Filius? Can you hear me, Filius?"

"I don't think he came back," Ron said. "I didn't see him."

"We need to get Bill to Madam Pomfrey," Tonks said, leaning in and laying a hand on McGonagall's arm. She lowered her voice. "Did you stem the bleeding?"

"I'm afraid not, Nymphadora."

"We should go now, then. Remus?"

She Conjured a stretcher, and Remus Levitated him, lowering him slowly onto it. Ginny hovered by their side, her eyes switching from Ron to Bill to the corridor Harry had run down.

"I'll get Longbottom," McGonagall said, and over her shoulder Tonks saw her Conjuring a stretcher of her own, and helping Neville onto it, even as he protested he was fine.

They made their way in silence to the hospital wing, Bill's ragged breath punctuating the air. Ron edged in front and pushed the door open, then stopped in the doorway.

"Hermione?"

Beyond him, Tonks saw Hermione rush to her feet, and in the bed she'd been sitting next to sat Professor Flitwick, a compress to his head, Luna Lovegood beside him. "Oh Ron, you're – " Her eyes halted on the stretchers and she gasped, backed quickly out of the way. "Madam Pomfrey!"

"What's all the – oh my. Set him down over here. What happened?"

Tonks and Remus manoeuvred the stretcher to the nearest bed, cautiously floating Bill onto the sheets, and before they'd even finished, Madam Pomfrey had her wand out, casting spells and muttering to herself. "It was Greyback. He attacked him. Both Tonks and Minerva tried to stop the bleeding but – "

"The werewolf?" Madam Pomfrey said. Remus flinched.

"Yes."

"But it isn't the full moon for weeks," Hermione said, her gaze flitting to the window, the crescent moon shimmering in the sky.

"It has all kinds of effects, though, the moon," Luna said, although she didn't look up. She was watching McGonagall settle Neville on the bed. "It's potent magic. All kinds of creatures are said to – "

"He wasn't transformed," Remus said. "But Greyback is – his viciousness isn't limited to or controlled by the lunar cycle. I think perhaps the wounds won't heal from conventional methods because they're – "

"Cursed?" Madam Pomfrey said. Remus didn't flinch this time, merely nodded, once. "How's the boy, Minerva?"

"Nasty slice to the stomach, perhaps a moderate concussion. I expect he'll pass out in a minute, if he stops fighting it."

She shot a mild look of chastisement at Neville, grey against the pillows, and Tonks was vaguely aware of a growing commotion somewhere outside. Madam Pomfrey Summoned a number of phials from the supply cabinet, catching them smartly and tucking them into the front pocket of her apron. "Mr and Ms Weasley, perhaps it would be better if you waited outside? Maybe Ms Granger could – "

"I'm staying," Ron said.

"Me too."

"Very well. This is most unusual," Madam Pomfrey said, feeling for Bill's pulse.

"He'll be all right, though?" Ron said. "S'not as bad as it looks, right?"

His voice was strangled and he looked from face to face for reassurance. At his side, Hermione's expression was fraught, and any platitude Tonks was about to offer died on her tongue.

"I'm afraid – well, werewolf injuries, whether they occur at the full moon or not, are – peculiar. They don't always heal completely."

It was Remus who spoke, and as Tonks looked at him his gaze was steady, although she could tell it was causing him real effort to keep it so.

"Will he be – " Ron swallowed. " – all right?"

"I don't know, Ron. Werewolf wounds are magical – darkly magical – as well as physical. There may be other side-effects, perhaps."

"Indeed. Very unpredictable," Madam Pomfrey said. "I'll do what I can and the wounds will heal as best they can but – well, I'm afraid his appearance may be somewhat disfigured."

"Disfigured?" Ron said, his eyes widening. "Oh."

Ginny sank against the wall, exchanging a frantic glance with Ron and then looking outside. "I think people heard something going on," she said. "Everyone's outside in their pyjamas."

"Harry," Neville said, and everyone turned to look at him, McGonagall frowning as she did. "Where's Harry?"

"Yes, and what is all the fuss? I can't imagine the Death Eaters lingered once they'd done whatever they came to do," Professor Flitwick said, swinging his feet off the bed and going over to the window, even though he could barely see over the sill. "I should really go and make sure everyone's all right."

"I need to go and contact your parents," McGonagall said, looking from Ginny to Ron. "Not to mention find Dumbledore and sort all this out. But perhaps someone should – Mr Potter should be located."

"I'll go," Ginny said.

"Very well," McGonagall said. "Bring him straight back here, Ms Weasley, and then maybe we can piece together what happened."

She frowned again at the thought, and Ginny looked at Ron, then Bill. "Look after him?" she said, and then she, Professor Flitwick and McGonagall headed for the door. It swung shut behind them, and Madam Pomfrey busied herself holding each phial in turn up to the light, then emptying them into Bill's mouth. Ron winced as Bill groaned.

"He's in excellent hands, Ron," Remus said. "And he's young and strong."

"See?" Hermione said, voice wavering slightly. "He'll be fine."

"Course he will," Ron said, forcing a smile. "Mum'll kill him if he's not. She only just got the seating plan sorted."

"Well, they'll need a moment to work before he can have the blood-replenishing potion," Madam Pomfrey said, straightening up. "Let's have a look at Longbottom. Would you mind making some room, Ms Lovegood?"

Luna nodded and got up, came over to the bed, and Tonks glanced at Remus. It was the first time she'd really looked at him since the battle, had a chance to take in his face. His forehead was furrowed beneath his fringe that still had dust and debris in it, and he looked every inch as worried as Ron.

An odd feeling settled in her chest. During the battle, when she'd been firing spells and so had he they'd felt like them again, a unit, as if everything else had abruptly stopped getting in the way. It wasn't the time for the thought but she wondered if that had changed things, if somehow this would help, if he'd felt it too.

She caught his sleeve, Conjured him a chair and eased him towards it, then drew a couple more on the other side of the bed for Ron, Luna and Hermione. She sank into one of her own at Remus' elbow, fiddling with the hole in her sleeve, blackened around the edges, absentmindedly set a healing spell to work on the cut and the burn on her arm. All things considered they'd been lucky, she thought. It wasn't every underage wizard who could hold their own against a fully-fledged Death Eater, and Ron and Ginny – Neville too – had fought with conviction and courage many full-grown witches and wizards never found it within themselves to possess.

She settled back against the chair, trying to piece together what had happened, but the questions in her head created a cacophony of thought that made her ears ring.

"How did Harry get up the tower?" she said, not realising one thought had solidified enough to utter until it was out of her mouth.

Hermione looked at Ron, and then back again. "He was with Dumbledore," she said. "That's why we were patrolling the castle. He had a feeling something would happen, something with Professor Snape and Draco. We split up to keep an eye on them."

"And he was right," Ron said, his fingers curling into his fist. "If I get my hands on Malfoy I'll – "

"But Dumbledore didn't come down," Tonks said. "If he'd seen us fighting he'd have put an end to it. And besides, how would Dumbledore get up there?"

"Maybe they Apparated from wherever they were?"

"You can't Apparate within Hogwarts grounds, Ron," Hermione said.

"Yeah, but he's Dumbledore isn't he? He probably can. He can do anything, near enough."

Hermione hummed in consideration, and Madam Pomfrey returned to Bill's bed, her lips pursed for a moment and then twitching slightly. She Summoned a tub of something from the cupboard, and then opened it, releasing a rather acrid smell, started gingerly smearing Bill's skin with the contents.

"What – what is that?" Hermione said, wrinkling up her nose.

"It's a potent healing balm. We're lucky to have Professor Sprout on hand to grow the correct ingredients. Normally I use it for severe potions burns but – it'll fortify his skin, give it the best chance."

They fell quiet, watching as she worked, and Tonks tried to grapple with it all, the idea of Death Eaters inside Hogwarts, the one place people were supposed to feel safe. She wondered where Dumbledore was, when he would appear, if there was something he could do for Bill, some healing magic none of the rest of them were clever enough to even guess at.

The door creaked open, and Tonks looked up. Harry stood in the doorway, Ginny at his side, his eyes wary as they skittered over the beds and their various occupants. Hermione got up, her shoes squeaking on the floor as she raced over to hug him, but Harry barely reacted, as if he'd forgotten how.

Remus got to his feet, moved towards them, asked if Harry was all right.

It soon became apparent that he wasn't. He asked about Bill, there was some discussion about if Bill would be a werewolf, and then Ginny spoke the words that none of them were expecting.

"Dumbledore's dead."

There was an echoing kind of horror to it that knocked Remus off his feet and into the chair beside her, and much as Tonks tried to make the words real, she couldn't. It was the same feeling she'd had when Sirius had died, disbelief and shock mingled together, because people like Sirius and Dumbledore weren't supposed to die. They were intrinsic, part of the air, too important to just _die_ like they were anyone.

"How did he die?" she said. "How did it happen?"

As Harry answered it became obvious that something unfathomably terrible had happened at the top of tower, something that none of them in their wildest nightmares had imagined. It was almost too much to comprehend, that the greatest wizard of their age – of many ages – was dead, killed by a schoolboy and someone who was in comparison mediocre. If Dumbledore was dead then how were they supposed to win?

She looked at Remus, but he had his hands over his eyes, his fingers white as they dug into his forehead. She wanted to drag his hands away, wrap her arms around him and let him collapse against her, but she didn't. Too drained, too shocked, too lost herself, maybe. She wasn't sure.

Phoenix song filled the air and Tonks closed her eyes, let it swim in her head in an effort to quiet her thoughts as they careened through the multitude of potential consequences. She tried not to think of the Death Eaters and what they were doing, how they must be celebrating, revelling in their victory, or picture the headlines that would flash in _The Daily Prophet_ tomorrow, the panic that would bound through people's hearts as they heard.

Albus Dumbledore was more than a wizard. He was a symbol, a note of hope and an ever-present flicker of light and warmth even when darkness encroached at a seemingly unstoppable rate. She wondered how they'd cope now that had been extinguished, but as the song took hold, deepened, the thought settled in her head that they'd still fight, because to give up, to give in, would be to do him the most shameful and abject disservice.

She wasn't sure how long passed. It seemed at once the briefest fraction of a second and an eternity, and then Professor McGonagall appeared at the door, her hair covered in a fine drape of dust and scratches on her face.

"Molly and Arthur are on their way," she said.

Bit by bit they pieced together what had happened, why Dumbledore had trusted Snape, how Draco Malfoy had not achieved what he had with clever magic or even particular intelligence, that he'd just seen an opportunity and made the most of it. That was the most frightening thing, she thought, that in the end battles were rarely won or lost on tactics, because one side fought harder or smarter than the other, had better ideas or even people on their side. Nearly always things happened that couldn't be predicted, had consequences that couldn't be prevented, the whole thing one chain reaction that would fizzle out where it did, regardless of what they tried. Dumbledore had trusted Snape because of something that had happened years ago, Draco had taken a chance, Greyback had spotted _his _opportunity, and now Bill Weasley was lying in a hospital bed looking like a one-man massacre and Dumbledore was dead.

The door opened again and there was Molly, striding down the ward, her eyes wide but stoic, her fingers curled compulsively together in front of her. Arthur and Fleur followed, and Tonks got up, Remus did too, pulling their chairs away so they could get to the bed.

Tonks watched Molly, the way different emotions played on her face –horror, anger, sorrow – all of them underpinned by absolute unquestionable love. She took the tub from Madam Pomfrey, set about Bill's wounds as Arthur did what he could, collected facts, what information there was, from Remus.

Suddenly it occurred to Tonks that that was the key, that whatever else they felt in the wake of Dumbledore's death – hopeless, terrified, anxious – the thing that they needed was love. Absolute, unquestionable, love. They all needed something to be certain of. She looked at Remus, who was making an in-depth study of the floor, and longing burned in her throat. She'd had that. She wanted it back.

"Of course, it doesn't matter how he looks... it's not r-really important... but he was a very handsome little b-boy... always very handsome... and he was g-going to be married!"

"And what do you mean by zat? What do you mean 'e was _going_ to be married?"

Fleur – who had previously been standing alone in something that looked a lot like shock – suddenly ignited, her indignation making the air crackle. Tonks wasn't sure which was more impressive, Molly's surprise or Fleur's anger, but as she watched them argue her own indignation curled in her stomach. Didn't all of this make Remus' arguments for why they shouldn't – couldn't – be together seem utterly insubstantial? At a time like this, people needed each other. Fleur knew it. Molly knew it. By the looks of things, even Harry and Ginny knew it, and yet Remus didn't.

Tonks was speaking before she'd properly formed the thought of what she was going to say in her head, words powered by the same impulse that had driven her to sending Remus owls of varying temperaments and showing up uninvited on his doorstep. "You see?" she said. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten. She doesn't care!"

Remus' eyes were downright alarmed as they fell on her. "It's different," he said rigidly, as if he was hoping that if he was quiet enough, everyone else might not be able to see them. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely – "

"But I don't care either, I don't care! I've told you a million times – "

It wasn't her most eloquent argument ever, but she found she didn't really care about that, either.

"And I've told _you_ a million times," he said, avoiding her eyes, "that I'm too old for you, too poor... too dangerous...."

"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," Molly said.

"I'm not being ridiculous. Tonks deserves someone young and whole."

"But she wants you," Arthur said. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so."

Tonks suddenly forgave Arthur every moment that he'd grilled her about Muggle technology she'd seen visiting her grandparents, and looked up at Remus, daring him to find a chink in Arthur's logic.

"This is not the moment to discuss it," Remus said. "Dumbledore is dead."

"Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world," McGonagall said, and before Tonks could leap in and agree, tell Remus that she agreed with Fleur, that it would take more than a werewolf to stop her loving him, even if he _was_ that werewolf, the door opened.

It was Hagrid, his face dirty and tear-streaked. He announced that he'd moved the body, although no-one asked for details of where. Tonks' thoughts moved to the students, now ensconced in their common rooms, going over the news, taking it in. She wondered what version they'd heard, if when the Ministry arrived they'd try and spin it somehow, conceal the truth in an effort to distil the panic.

McGonagall took Harry away, and Ginny settled next to the windowsill, watching Bill breathe raspily in and out. "What now?" she said.

Tonks had been thinking the same thing. So much had happened –

"We'll give you some privacy," Remus said.

Tonks looked up, met his eye, and he nodded softly towards the door. She tried to discern his mood from the tilt of his head, whether he just wanted to be alone with her so he could deliver a lecture about inappropriate outbursts, or whether he had something to say other than what he'd been saying for months, something that wasn't full of shouldn'ts and can'ts and won'ts. She was too tired and shocked to hope for that, though.

"Let us know if there's anything you need, Molly," he said, and opened the door for Tonks, ushering her out with his hand on the small of her back.

* * *

They wandered to the edge of the lake, and Tonks watched as tiny waves lapped at the shore. The grounds were almost unnaturally silent, as if the trees had stopped swaying and the birds couldn't sing past the lump in their throats. Behind them the castle looked stark against the sky, as if the very walls were raw, still taking in the news, and she tried to imagine everything that was going on inside, Molly, Arthur and Fleur clustered around Bill's bed, waiting for him to stir, McGonagall making arrangements, hundreds of childish faces shocked and maybe even shining with tears.

It all seemed vaguely surreal. What seemed more surreal was the memory of Remus' fingers on her back, the way he'd said _us_, a word he'd been steadfastly avoiding and denying for months. She sighed, looked up at him, picking out his features in the moonlight.

"Your arm's injured," he said, gesturing to the singed patch her sleeve, the torn skin beneath.

"You nearly died, so you win."

He smiled slightly, let out a low breath, and lifted his fingers to his eyebrow, rubbing at it. "Yes. I'd forgotten how disconcerting that is."

Quiet fell, and Remus Conjured a handful of blue flames and gestured to the ground. She sat, the grass slightly damp beneath her fingers, too tired and her head too empty and simultaneously full to even wonder where this was going. She hoped that tonight had changed things. If she'd felt it, he must have too, mustn't he? But he really was a stubborn bastard, and maybe all that was going on here was them getting out of the way, together only by default. She wanted to say something, but she couldn't think of anything. She'd said everything there was to say, she thought. If there were more words of persuasion she could use she didn't know what they were, how to cajole them into a meaningful arrangement, and besides which, she didn't want Remus to be with her simply because he was too tired to argue any more or had been _persuaded_.

And so they just sat, side by side by the lake, listening to the sound of the water gently lapping its own quiet lament.

She wasn't sure how long passed, but eventually Remus shifted on the grass and spoke.

"Are they right?" he said.

He looked at her, and his gaze was oddly calm, given the tempest that had driven them here. She wondered what he'd been thinking, if everything that had happened tonight had caused some seismic shift in his thinking, if he'd been sitting going over it all, reassessing, or if that was just her foolish heart again, jumping to the conclusions it wanted to be there.

"Who? Molly and Arthur?"

"Everyone," he said, rolling his eyes. "Everyone I talk to thinks I'm being – ridiculous and stupid and – well Moody used some rather colourful language but I got the gist that he agreed."

"Are you sure you want my opinion? I'm a bit biased when it comes to the subject of us."

"You said I was prejudiced before, so that's fair enough," he said, gestured to her with encouragement.

"Of course they're right," she said, and drew in a long, slow breath of chilled air. "I don't think you're being ridiculous – I think I understand why you feel the way you feel but – " Tonks paused. "I don't really know what to say to you that I haven't already said. Twice."

Remus nodded, closed his eyes for a second as if he was mentally panning through everything. They must have had a hundred arguments, and she'd said a lot of things that she wouldn't have thought herself capable of. She wished she could think of something new, something that would be irrefutable proof for him of her love, but she wasn't sure what she could say that wasn't impossibly trite and inadequate.

"I just want to be with you, Remus," she said quietly. "And I think you want to be with me too, only you think you shouldn't. I understand why you think your reasons are reasons, but they don't feel very real to me, if that makes sense."

Remus swallowed, and met her eye for a second before looking out over the lake. "I used to come here with Lily Potter," he said. "Although in those days there was no Potter, only Evans. We used to talk about James and girls and everything in between. There was a time when I was very much in love with her."

"If this is another excuse, you can't be with me because your heart belongs to a ghost – "

"No, that's not at all what I was going to say," he said. "She was a great friend to me. I was just wondering what she'd say if she were here."

"And? What do you think she would?"

"I think she'd probably have given up on words and just hit me by now. She was always very – " He paused, weary amusement flickering across his face as he picked the right word. " – _forthright_ when it came to me and my love life."

"She sounds like my kind of girl."

"Oh, she was. She would have adored you, and I daresay you would have lead each other terribly astray."

He let out a low breath that was part sigh and part sad chuckle. "In a way it's all her fault, this," he said.

"I thought you said your feelings for her – "

"Oh, long buried," he said. "It's just she was right, in a way I never expected her to be."

He paused, looked at Tonks, the tiniest glimmer of wry amusement in his eyes, illuminated by the blue flames he'd set on the grass between them. "Once, she told me she could see the future. She said she could see us all after the war in the sunshine, that I'd be there with a girl, someone who was so in love with me I couldn't believe it. At the time I thought it was hippogriff dung, some piece of comfort to cling to because we needed something to cling to, but now.... Well, it seems oddly prophetic."

Tonks murmured, content to listen to him talk because this was the longest he'd really spoken in months. It was almost as if the night had made him someone else, an echo of the man she'd sat in front of fires with and talked to about things she wasn't sure she'd ever utter in front of anyone, a man who'd confessed his romantic misdemeanours with a twinkle in his eye, talked about his werewolf nature with easy candour. She liked having him back. It was proof that the last year hadn't made him disappear, squashed him into nonexistence, that somewhere inside the man who'd protested and detailed the different kinds of wrong it was for them to be together there was still this. Remus was still the man who'd nudged his way into her heart and made himself so at home that she was sure no-one else could ever fit.

"She also told me once that she thought me, the rest of me, was more likely to get in the way of me being happy than me being a werewolf ever would."

"I guess she was right about that too, then."

"Maybe," he said. "Do you really want the truth?"

"Of course I do."

"You won't like it."

"I don't care."

Remus glanced at her, a soft smile on his lips, the kind she thought she'd see as his irritation at her continued programme of attrition turned to amusement. It made her heart gutter hopefully in her chest, although it had so often and had been thwarted that she tried to still the impulse. "When I say that you should find someone less... complicated it's true enough. I am probably too old for you and I have very little to offer you in terms of security. And I _am_ dangerous. You've seen it tonight. We all have it in us to do terrible things, Tonks." She opened her mouth to protest, but Remus raised his hand. "Which you have pointed out – on several occasions – is hardly limited to werewolves, and yes I did see the Death Eaters gleefully firing Unforgiveables at children."

She smiled a little, pressed her lips together to let him know she wouldn't interrupt, and Remus continued. "I just don't think I'm who you think I am," he said. "This person you love, this person you've made all this effort for – I don't think he exists."

"Who do you think I think you are?"

"Someone good," he said, shrugging. "Someone brave. Someone who's all the things you are without effort."

"I'm not – "

"Yes you are. Maybe you don't see it, but I do. Mad-Eye does. Dumbledore does. Or – did." He cleared his throat, avoided her eyes as she frowned at him. "You deserve a better man than I'll ever be. I'm a coward and – "

"You can't really believe that?"

He rolled his eyes, nodded slightly, and his shoulders sank a little.

"Remus – " The word died in her throat, killed by her astonishment at what he'd said. "You're right, I don't like it. This year, with Greyback – "

"Has been a dismal failure. Dumbledore trusted me to win them over and I didn't. And then I left. Hardly the actions of a – "

"They're the actions of a human, Remus. You don't have to be infallible."

"Tonks, the consequences of my fallibility have always been so horrendous – that's why – I can't afford to make another selfish mistake with the person who means the most to me."

The words sat, heavy, in the air, inspiring a jumble of emotions in her stomach. At once she was exasperated that he thought anything he might do with her a selfish mistake, and elated that she'd been right, that at the heart of everything was not some lack of love, but rather a surfeit of it.

She dropped her hand onto the grass, inched her fingers towards his until they were touching. She thought he'd jerk away, flinch, maybe, but he didn't, and it made her more certain and bold. She took his hand, trying not to get distracted by the soft warmth of his fingers as they curled around hers. "I'm not a selfish mistake, and you're not a coward."

"Tonks, I appreciate – "

"It's not just me that thinks that. I know you think my feelings get in the way of me seeing things the way you think they are, but – Sirius told me he thought you were one of the truest Gryffindors he ever knew."

Remus' eyebrows shot up, his eyes surprised and wide beneath them.

"Why on earth would he think – "

"Because he knew you," she said, suddenly absolutely certain about what she wanted to say. "I mean really knew you. Knew all the things you hoped no-one would see, all the bits you hoped you'd always to be able to hide. And I think I'm starting to too. This year – it's made you think you're something you're not. Can I tell you something you don't want to hear?"

"Will you say it anyway if I say no?"

"Probably."

"Go on, then."

He met her eye slightly sheepishly and she tried to arrange her thoughts so that she'd get the words exactly right. "It's not my place to be, but I've always been immensely proud of you, of the way you're just _you._ Life hasn't exactly been kind – it's kicked you in the teeth over and over – but you've never let it turn you into someone bitter or vengeful, or even really angry. You're just here, quietly trying to do what you can, and that's – that's who you are. That's what Sirius meant. You took a really bad hand from life and you played it like it was all aces. There's nothing cowardly about that. It's the opposite. The _exact_ opposite." She squeezed his fingers and looked at him, studying his face for some sign that what she'd said had had the desired impact. He studied the lake, his jaw clamped and some emotion playing beneath it, although she couldn't tell quite which one it was. "You remember the first time we went out?" she said, and he nodded. "I told you I thought you were wonderful, and _nothing_ that's happened since has changed my opinion. You don't have to be a better man for me. Sirius – James and Lily, your dad – they loved you just like this, didn't they? And I do too."

"What if you're wrong about me?"

"What if I'm not?" she said. "I'm not certain of much – I mean who is – but I know who Remus Lupin is, and I'm certain he's the person I want. And the more poorly he thinks of himself, the more it confirms it."

Remus paused for a moment, scrubbing his thumb across the back of her hand. "That's annoyingly watertight," he said, and she laughed, dispelling some of the tension that had pooled in her shoulders.

"Well I've had a lot of thinking time."

Remus looked at her and she smiled. "You know I used to feel the same sometimes?" she said.

"The same?"

"I had times when I couldn't believe someone like you would be in love with me. I used to think that one day you'd wake up and realise that I'm just a stupid girl with funny hair and a nice line in tight t shirts, that all the things that maybe you thought were interesting aren't really."

"What changed?"

"One day I realised that that's just love. It makes you think so much of the other person that you can't help but think you'll never be good enough. I think that's how you know it's really _love_ love, that it makes you scared."

Remus smiled. He hadn't said anything, hadn't given her any indication, really, that anything had changed, and yet she felt that something had, that in amongst her garbled thoughts something had hit home. "Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Anything."

"Did you ever stop thinking of me as yours, of us as together?"

"No. Did you?"

"I tried to. I tried to wish you'd meet someone in Hogsmeade, someone who'd make you forget me entirely."

"Well," she said, a slow smile creeping back up her face, "unfortunately for you, you're anything but forgettable."

He murmured some reply, as if he was at once amused and desperately thinking, and Tonks sat, savouring the feel of his hand in hers. So many times he'd held it and she hadn't quite appreciated how good it felt, just to know he was there. She stretched a little to try and ease the tinge of exertion starting to manifest in her muscles, the ache in several directions that twisted through every inch of her body, but then was aware that Remus was peering at her intently. She raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Nothing, just – " He shook his head. "Your hair looks – different."

"Different?"

"Lighter. Blondish."

"What?"

She pulled a strand of hair forward, stared at the ends until she was cross-eyed, trying to make out if it was dust, or the light from the fire. But it wasn't. It was definitely _different_. She gazed at it for a moment to make sure the change had stuck, that she wasn't imagining it, but there it was, right in front of her nose. Lighter. Blondish. "Oh," she said, and Remus squeezed her fingers.

She thought he might ask about it, what had caused it, hoped he wouldn't because she didn't really know, other than that she too felt lighter, like something she'd been carrying had fallen away – but he just nodded towards the horizon, where the first streaks of dirty gold were emerging from the gloom.

"It'll be dawn soon," he said.

"I know."

"We should go back to the castle."

"Probably."

Neither of them moved, and Tonks sat, watching the sky as it lightened, thinking how strange it was that tomorrow would be just another day, but everything would be different now that Dumbledore was gone.

She wasn't sure about them. Would that be different too? Or would this – whatever this was, this new understanding she thought had developed – disappear as soon as the sun came up?

"Will you come tomorrow?"

She looked up, and Remus smiled at her, crooked and almost playful, a flicker of nervousness somewhere deep inside his expression.

"What?"

"To mine."

"I've said everything a million times," she said. "And your answer never changes."

"Maybe tomorrow I'll say something different."

"I can't keep hanging my hopes on a maybe, Remus."

"I mean I will. If you come tomorrow, I _will_ say something different."

She took in his expression, trying to discern what was going on in his head, wishing she could see his thoughts as they played out behind his eyes. But she couldn't, and as she looked at him his gaze turned earnest and hopeful, making her think that she couldn't hang her hopes on a maybe, but that it wasn't entirely foolish to hang them on a _will. _

"Ok," she said.

"Tomorrow, then," Remus said softly, and leant forward and kissed her lightly on the shoulder.

* * *

**A/N:** What, you didn't think I was going to wrap this up without one more evil cliffie, did you? Anyway, thank you for reading, and especially big thanks to those of you who have cheerlead and encouraged while I wrote. Apologies-for-taking-so-long pressies for everyone, take your pick: shy!Remus Conjures you flowers and peers endearingly through his fringe; flirty!Remus says apologies should be personal, pins you to a door and offers you kisses; sexy!Remus writes 'sorry' on your stomach in chocolate sauce and slowly licks it off :D.


	26. Into Tomorrow

_For everyone who has read, reviewed, cajoled, encouraged, supported, and otherwise rocked my world xxx_

_

* * *

  
_

Tonks stood outside the windmill. It was another lovely day, clouds chasing across sky and sun streaking the grass between the shadows, but she couldn't properly enjoy it with apprehension twisting her stomach into a knot. In all the times she'd been here she'd never been nervous before, because she'd always known – or suspected – what would happen: she would try and Remus would give her his excuses, but today....

Today was different. A new day, a new them. Or at least that's what Remus had said. Tonks wasn't entirely sure she trusted it. Hope flickered in her veins, but she wasn't sure that wouldn't be extinguished the second he opened the door. He'd had hours to think, to talk himself out of _them_, to rationalise, and she couldn't tell which Remus would be there when she knocked.

She'd seen it before. Battle, nearly dying, losing a friend, it made people think they felt things that they didn't, made people rash, impulsive, impetuous, and sometimes those things dwindled by the morning.

She almost wanted to put off the moment because a flicker of hope was better than nothing, but the curtains twitched, the shadow of Remus' frame outlined beyond, and she knew he was there, just waiting for her to knock. Taking a deep breath she rapped lightly on the muted wood, and the door opened so quickly she was sure he must have already had his hand on the doorknob.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Come in."

Remus stood back, gestured to the lounge. That was certainly new, different, and she stepped over the threshold into the small, circular room.

"How was your day?" he said, and Tonks rolled her eyes.

"The Ministry are doing their best to make a bad thing worse. Predictable but tiresome."

Remus smiled and Tonks looked around, taking in the shabby furniture and the threadbare carpet. The place seemed different, lighter, although as soon as the thought formed she wondered if that wasn't just Remus' demeanour, that instead of slumping and slouching _he_ seemed brighter, as if something inside him had remembered how to be.

"Would you like some tea? Or there's Firewhiskey if it's been more one of those days."

"Either," she said, tucking her hair – which she'd managed to make a pale mauve – behind her ear.

She watched as Remus went into the kitchen, reached into a cupboard above a blackened stove, and he returned with two squat glasses half-filled with amber liquid. She wondered if she should read something into that being the drink he'd chosen, if they were both going to need some kind of liquid fortification, but she dismissed the thought as paranoid when he smiled and gestured to the small table next to the window.

It was strewn with papers, and from what she could tell, maps of Scotland, the Lake District and the Cotswolds. Remus flicked his wand in their general direction and they arranged themselves into a neatish pile, and settled next to a jam jar stuffed with purple hyacinths.

Purple hyacinths. His mother had said something about them – something about them being for apologies. Did he know? Was that why –

Remus noticed her noticing them, and gestured to a seat.

"Those are for you," he said, and Tonks sank down, tucking her feet under the chair.

"Oh," she said. "Thank you, but you didn't have to – "

"They're Conjured so they won't last, but – "

"They're beautiful."

Remus sat down opposite her, smiling a little, curling his fingers around his glass.

"I'm glad you came."

When he met her eye his expression was equal parts sheepish and mischievous, and abruptly any lingering awkwardness disappeared as Tonks realised that she didn't really care exactly what happened next, that for now it was enough just to be on this side of the door. It was nice just to be with him again, to have a conversation – however inconsequential – that didn't involve deep thought and justifications.

"So what's the plan?" she said, lifting her glass to her lips. "Should I do one of my speeches, or – "

"Actually I was going to ask if you wanted to marry me."

The mouthful of Firewhiskey Tonks had been halfway through swallowing halted in her throat, and then made a startled retreat back into her mouth, making her cough into her glass.

She stared at him as if confirmation of what she thought he'd just said might be written on his face, spluttered another cough, and Remus took out his wand, Summoned something from the kitchen and caught it smartly. He set it down on the table, and when Tonks looked up from her choking fit, on the table between them was a small brown box, its corners tattered, its sides decked with a pattern of faded white polka dots.

Remus smiled, and slowly pushed the box towards her across the table with the tips of his fingers. "If you'll have me," he said, "I would very much like to be had."

Tonks blinked at him.

"Yesterday we weren't even really together and today you want to get married?"

"Yes."

"That's _insane_."

"You've seen me fire Twiglets up a grown man's nose, eat fish finger, pea and ketchup sandwiches and picnic in the middle of winter, and it's only now that you're questioning my sanity?" he said. One of his eyebrows inched up, and she felt a smile burgeoning in her stomach and slowly making its way to her face. "Besides, I thought perhaps the kind of girl who was crazy enough to put up with me this year might go for it."

"Oh you did."

"Yes," he said. "Apologies if I've misjudged you."

He gave the box another small nudge, and Tonks looked from him to it and back again. It was insane – _completely_ insane – and incongruous beyond the telling – that after everything that had happened he was – of all things – _proposing_.

And yet at the same time, it was all so very Remus she wondered why she'd ever expected anything else.

Remus leant forward slightly, unwrapped her fingers from their clenched position around her glass. His gaze softened but turned slightly more serious as he linked their fingers together, and Tonks dragged in a breath.

"What I said when I left," he said. "I meant it. I love you very greatly – more greatly than I ever thought I'd love anyone. That you return the feeling – " He paused, searched for the words, smiling a little as he went on. " – is something so far beyond what I ever had the audacity to hope for it may well take me forever to get used to it. But – if you'd like to, then – well, I'd like for that forever to start sooner rather than later. Nowish, in fact. Will you marry me?"

Tonks stared at him. She'd never really thought about getting married. She'd thought about forever, being with Remus for the rest of her life, but she'd never really thought that anyone – Remus included – would want to marry her. But the thought _was_ desperately enticing.

"I don't know what to say."

"A yes or no would be traditional," he said. "Although if you'd rather throw something at me and run away screaming, I would completely understand."

Tonks looked at him. His eyes were hopeful, expectant, boyishly curious, perhaps, but not at all concerned or worried. It took her a second to realise why that made her skin tingle, and then it was obvious.

For the first time, Remus was certain. Certain of her, certain of himself, certain of them.

Always, in the past – when he'd kissed her at Grimmauld Place, when he'd asked if she'd like to go out, when they'd been to the party at Steph's and decided to take things further – he'd been uncertain, in some way afraid. And now that was gone. He was certain that he loved her, and more importantly, certain that she loved him. It wasn't just a box on the table, and it wasn't a gesture of love on its own and for its own sake, it was that. Certainty, in polka dots.

"You really want to do this?"

"I do."

"Me too, then. Yes."

In the next instant, before she'd even really formed the word, they were both out of their chairs and his arms were around her. He clutched her tightly to his chest, lifted her slightly off the ground, and at once _everything_ that had kept them from each other disappeared. Her throat constricted against a barrage of emotions – joy that he finally knew, had realised what she'd been trying to say and accepted that he deserved it, and something that went beyond that, some soaring feeling that now, whatever happened, everything was going to be all right.

He held her close as if she were precious, some noise that was either the start of a laugh or a sob catching in his throat as he pressed his face to her shoulder.

"You really are the most wonderful girl."

When he found them his words were a murmur against her neck, and they turned into a steady stream of quick, hot kisses. She took his face in her hands. "I'm not, I just – "

Whatever word she'd been about to utter got swallowed by a kiss, and a second later she'd forgotten that she intended to speak. His kiss was exhilarating, and she tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. She'd wondered if she'd _ever_ get this back, if what they'd had hadn't been irreparably damaged by the last year, but his kiss was as perfect and intense and inside-jigging as it ever had been, making her tingle all the way from her scalp to toes that were still a little way off the ground.

She took a ragged breath against his mouth, almost as if she was breathing in the entirety of him. His crisp, clean Remus smell filled her lungs, and Merlin how she'd missed that, and the feel of his body against hers. It was apparently mutual. His lips moved against hers with unfettered glee, his fingers apparently trying to map every inch. _Her_ fingers started untucking his shirt entirely of their own accord, crawled into the pocket of warmth between him and the fabric. His stomach contracted under her touch, and she felt suddenly light-headed, either in response to him pulling at her clothes, or the thought that they'd both just agreed to forever.

"I think you might actually be making me weak at the knees, here," Remus said, laughing against her buttons, and in amongst the heat and the sensation, _that_ was the sexiest thing of all.

"There's a really easy solution to that," she murmured, and they crumpled to the floor.

They spent the rest of the evening in a tangle of clothes, but eventually hunger called, and Tonks curled up on the sofa in one of Remus' v necks while he made them something to eat. Tonks couldn't quite believe she wasn't dreaming, but it all felt real enough, the warmth of his soft, worn jumper and the smell of whatever he was apparently burning in the kitchen. This, she thought, was everything she'd ever wanted, and she wondered if she should be grateful for the last year, if only because it had taught her the depth and breadth of her love, something she probably wouldn't have realised if she'd always had Remus right there with her.

Remus sank down beside her, offering her a plate on which nestled a sinister-looking sandwich. "Special occasion special," he said.

"Do I even want to know..?"

"Just take a bite."

She did as she was told, assailed immediately by warm cheese, mustard and sausage.

"This should be disgusting," she said.

"I know."

Remus tucked into his own sandwich, and she watched him with relish, because she'd missed just the little details of him, the way he sat, the way he moved, the way his eyes darted to hers, wondering what she was thinking. Every time she looked at him she felt a little more in love with him. And now he was hers, eternally. She grinned into her sandwich.

"What?"

"Nothing, just – can I say yes again?"

Remus smiled, his eyes twinkling in a way she'd thought they'd probably forgotten, and desire curled in her stomach, desire and something softer to do with being the person who'd made the twinkle reappear. It seemed impossible that she – with all her impetuous flaws and graceless faults – could do that. Maybe that was the thing it would take her forever to get used to.

Remus set his plate down, wiped his fingers, and took out his wand. "You know, it occurs to me that you haven't even seen the ring yet," he said.

"You didn't have to get a ring."

"Don't begrudge me a little tradition."

Remus Summoned the box and caught it deftly, holding it out to her on the palm of his hand. Tonks pressed her lips together and took it, her mind flitting through all the possibilities of what might be inside, what he might have chosen. She opened the box, and delicately caught between two wedges of velvet was a thin gold band with small but unmistakeable diamonds set flush against it.

"Remus it's beautiful, but – "

"Try it on."

"Remus – "

"_Tonks_."

His voice was playfully stern, and he met her eye with a gaze that was every inch the steely professor. She laughed, obligingly slipped the ring out of the box and onto her finger. She'd never really been the kind of girl who dreamt of engagement rings or longed for jewellery – something which had been compounded every time she'd tried on some of her mother's vast collection and got sapphires and rubies caught on the curtains and brought the rail down – but it looked very at home on her hand. More at home, in truth, than she'd thought it would.

"Do you like it? If you don't we can – "

"I love it, but – "

"If you're about to launch into some touching show of concern about the state of my finances, you needn't. I didn't buy it."

"So you've finally turned to a life of crime, then?"

"Bound to happen, sooner or later," Remus said. He shrugged and then shifted closer, his eyes flickering to where the ring sat on her finger. He lifted her hand a little, considered it, then kissed the back of her hand. "Actually it's a gift. From my mother. It was her engagement ring and she gave it to me the day she met you, just in case."

"You've had it since – " Remus nodded, the corners of his mouth just inching up into a smile. "Did you want to marry me, way back then?"

"Before that, actually."

Tonks' mouth dropped open and Remus looked away, a little sheepish.

"So when exactly did you decide?"

"When we met and you told me what I was mattered less than who, when you kissed me in the kitchen, when we sat on the wall at the Poplars, when we talked about my condition, when Sirius died – I decided over and over. I just never felt it was fair to ask."

"What changed?"

"Honestly?" he said, and met her eye as she nodded. He shifted closer, his fingers fluttering up to her face, tracing patterns on her cheek. "It was a lot of things, but I think the biggest factor was your hair."

"What?"

"Your hair," he said. His fingers separated a strand, and he looked at it for a second, rapt. "It's intrinsic magic – I remember you saying when you were younger you couldn't control it, that sometimes what you felt was just _there_. When it started to change, just because of a _maybe_ – I'd have liked to have been able to believe your words, but – "

"Magic speaks louder?"

"Sometimes."

Tonks smiled, shifted into his lap, nestling her knee between his hip and the arm of the sofa. His hands were warm on her thighs, and she rested her palm against his shirt, adjusting to the sight of the ring – her _engagement_ ring – against it.

"I love you, you know."

"I do."

She pushed her fingers into his hair and kissed him, savouring the warmth of his mouth and the long, slow pace of his kiss, then drew away again. "I think you'll find the correct response is, _I love you too, Tonks_."

"Is that right."

He grabbed her waist, and before she could protest, her back was against the sofa, Remus settling on top of her, his old infinite mischief glinting in his eyes. "I love you too, Tonks," he said. He kissed her far too briefly, and then deliberately studied the wall. "Although, if we're going to get married, I wonder if I can really keep calling you that."

"I swear, Remus, if you think this is some excuse to come up with a ridiculous pet name, I'll turn your balls into strawberries right now."

"Fair enough."

Remus sniggered his way into another kiss, one that was rather more substantial, and she wound her arms around his neck thinking that it was nice to have him back. Forever.

* * *

"Get out of bed, you lazy – "

Tonks whacked her alarm before it could get into the full flow of one of its tirades, and groaned her way into consciousness. Sunlight was shining inconsiderately into the room, and she blinked at the window and then smiled.

In place of the tatty tapestry that had hung there previously, her rainbow-striped efforts framed the pane. Remus must have hung them while she was at work last night, and she had to admit that they looked pretty good in Remus' window.

Or their window, as it was now. They'd debated what to do about their living arrangements, that it seemed silly to have their stuff strewn across half the country, divided between her flat, her room at the Hog's Head and here. It had been an easy decision to choose here, since it was devoid of the goat smell that dogged the Hog's Head and bigger and far prettier than her flat. It had taken less than two hours for her to pack all her things, a little longer to make it all fit, and when she'd left for work there had been over-stuffed carpet bags where the lounge should be and an explosion of socks and underwear on the staircase. Apparently Remus had taken it upon himself to find a place for everything, though, and she got out of bed, threw on some clothes and went downstairs to find him.

Remus was in the kitchen, and he smiled as he heard her approaching, turned and handed her her favourite I Hate Work mug filled with tea. She didn't need to taste it to know it'd have just the right ratio of sugar to milk, and had been brewed for the appropriate 47 seconds.

"Morning," he said. "I didn't hear you come in last night."

"I was stealthy. I'm improving. Or maybe you were just really knackered from all this interior decorating."

She gestured at the shelves, where her books were neatly piled with his, her snow globe taking pride of place on the mantelpiece alongside a picture of Remus and his friends. In some ways it was surprising how well they – and their stuff – just fitted together, and in other ways she thought it wasn't surprising at all, because they always had.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he said. "I could make you toast, or – "

"Fine with the tea for now," she said, obligingly lifting her mug to her lips and taking a sip. As she suspected, it was exactly how she liked it, and she smirked into it.

"Mad-Eye just Flooed. He wants us there early tomorrow to go over the wards before the funeral."

"You're kidding. He knows that's what I spent all of yesterday – and the day before – and the day before that – doing?"

"He said it's not that he doesn't trust you, more that Death Eaters are sneaky bastards with no respect for occasion, and it doesn't hurt to quadruple check. Apparently we'll thank him when the chairs don't turn into flaming pigs, as he claims to have seen somewhere once between hymns."

Tonks rolled her eyes, inched closer, reaching for Remus' hand. "Will you be all right?" she said. "At the funeral?"

"I'll be fine."

"It's just – when we heard – "

"I know." He laced their fingers together, shot her a thankful smile, then sighed. "It was just the shock, I think. I never expected Dumbledore to be fallible."

"I think everyone's in shock. Everyone except Scrimgeour. He's making all the right noises about how sad it is but secretly I think he thinks this is his chance."

"His chance to..?"

"Who knows. I heard him muttering something about Harry. Probably best we get there early anyway, in case Harry needs us. The last thing he needs is someone trying to play politics with him."

Remus murmured his agreement, and Tonks sipped at her tea. "What did you mean by fallible, anyway?"

"Just – when I was at the camp, one of the things that I kept thinking, one of the things that kept me there was that_ I_ might think it was a losing battle, but if _Dumbledore_ didn't – well he was always so much cleverer than anyone. I just assumed he could see something I couldn't."

"Are you certain it _was_ a losing battle? You don't think you made any headway at all?"

"Maybe some with the children," Remus said, sighing. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that."

He gestured to the table, drew her to it, and shoved aside the copy of _The Daily Prophet_ that was open across it.

"I'm going back."

"To the camp?" Tonks' eyes widened in horror. "Remus you can't. Greyback _knows_ – he'll kill you."

"I wasn't going to waltz past his cave announcing my presence with a song and dance number."

"It's too dangerous."

"It's not. I can be _very_ sneaky."

He looked up at her, briefly mischievous, then went back to shuffling papers until he found what he was apparently looking for. It was a dirty, ragged Muggle map, but magically altered. All the various boundary spells were clearly marked as if they'd been darned with shimmering gold thread, and as Tonks leant closer, she could see movement. "What are – "

"People. Werewolves."

Tonks peered at the map, and there, between stains of indeterminate origin and patches of green denoting the forest she could see them. They were tiny, moving, but definitely names.

"Where the hell did you learn – _how_ the hell did you do that?"

"It's not as detailed as I'd like," he said, peering at her somewhat apologetically through his fringe, "but I've been using it to keep tabs on the camp – the movement of the different groups. I can pin point the exact location of those sympathetic to our cause, as well as those whose loyalties are Greyback's."

"You made this while you were there?"

"Took me a couple of months," he said.

"_Months_?"

"Well there's not exactly a lot to do there, entertainment-wise. The nights were long. The days were longer. If nothing else it was something to focus on. It took me a couple of attempts – I'd forgotten a couple of the golden rules, and the terrain – "

"You've done this before?"

"Never alone," Remus said, and his eyes darted to the picture on the mantelpiece, where four boyish faces grinned out from above Gryffindor scarves. "That was one of the problems, covering the ground without people who could change form and avoid suspicion. Of course the other was that Sirius and James were always far more adept at this kind of charm work, but – "

"You've been keeping an eye on the camp all this time?"

"I didn't abandon my mission simply because I could no longer stand to be there in person. I told Isaiah I'd look out for him – you don't break promises like that."

Tonks stared at him, a little shocked by his casual brilliance and the depth of his caring. She wasn't sure how he could ever have doubted himself, but that he had was what made him Remus. She set her mug down, crossed her arms, trying to batten down her smile.

"What's your cunning plan, then?" she said.

"Nothing fancy. It's only moderately heroic."

"Go on."

"Cause a distraction to get Greyback and his cronies' attention, then use whatever limited time that buys to get the children – and whoever else has had enough – out of there."

"Just your basic balls of steel plan, then?"

"Yep."

"I should have turned them into strawberries when I had the chance."

Remus grinned at her. "So in your professional opinion, will it work?"

"Probably. Greyback's a creature of arrogance, thinks fear is enough to keep people in their place. He'll fall for a distraction, never thinking you'd have the guts to be up to something."

"That's what I thought."

"But what are you going to do with the children? Isaiah told me if they had somewhere else to go they'd be there already."

"I've thought of that, and I have an idea. It's not perfect but it's better. Or at least I think it is."

Remus pulled another map out of the pile of papers. This one was bigger, covered the whole table, and had several areas marked. One seemed to be in the Highlands, one near Lake Windermere, one in the Cotswolds and one down in Devon.

"These are safe locations. They're not ideal, but I've been looking at them all and – " Remus tapped the map. "This one seems the most promising. There's an abandoned barn that with a little magical assistance could be made liveable and secured, maybe enough room for a family group of ten." He pointed to another spot on the map, an inch or so away. "Here there's an old crofter's cottage suitable for maybe half a dozen. It used to belong to a witch named Rose de Vere, so it's already on the Floo network, and here, there's a collection of buildings that have been dormant since the nineteenth century. It's big enough for a couple more rooms and maybe a large meeting place of some kind, say a school, or – "

Tonks grinned at him. She should have known he had something like this planned, that all the days he'd been here, hiding from her, that wasn't all he was doing. It suddenly seemed obvious that Dumbledore hadn't been fallible, at least not when it came to this. Dumbledore's faith in Remus had never been misplaced, and maybe the big picture Dumbledore had been seeing was Remus himself, his talent for carrying on being kind and wonderful to others, even as the worst of things happened to him. Dumbledore must have known that Remus' enduring quality was his resilience, his refusal to give in, that much as he thought himself a coward who'd never be good enough, his actions shouted in the contrary.

"What?" he said, catching her grinning.

"This is all off the cuff, is it?"

Remus rubbed at his forehead, unable to quite hide his smile. "Well not exactly."

"I take it when you say _could_ be made liveable. You've already done it?"

"Maybe."

"And you've sorted something for the full moon?"

"I might have set up a periphery boundary spell, like the one around Hogwarts, that'll keep any Muggle locals away and laid a couple of my own charmed lines that werewolves can't cross."

"What else might you have done? You said a school? Been brushing up on your Professor skills?"

Remus looked away, fiddled with the edge of the map as if he were almost embarrassed. "That's the best thing, actually," he said. "While I was there investigating I met someone, a wizard by the name of Archibald Screech. He used to teach at the local school but just retired – he's offered to help." Remus paused, looked up at her. "He's very keen, says he's missed the inventiveness of young minds – he wants to learn how to make Wolfsbane too – apparently teaching Muggle chemistry has given him some insight into the potioner's art. And as you said, I can always offer my services."

"You've got it all figured out, then."

"It's not a permanent or perfect solution – they'll still essentially be homeless and living on the fringes but they're away from Greyback. That gives them a chance, at least, and in time maybe it'll just be a stepping-stone before people can move out on their own and find a real life."

He met her eye slowly, cautiously, silently asking what she thought, and she could see in his gaze how much it, and her approval, meant to him.

"It's brilliant."

"I'm glad you think so," he said, his lips twitching into a smile that she knew was the briefest hint of what he actually felt, "because it's far more than a one man job. Moody and Arthur are in and willing to be the distraction, but I'm still going to need someone to help actually get them out."

"What's your thinking?"

"Side-along would be ideal, but a lot of them have no experience of magic beyond the Death Eaters and I fear it'd take too long anyway. So I was thinking we sneak into the camp, commandeer Greyback's Floo connection, move everyone together and Floo from there."

"That's insanity."

"You already know I have a penchant for that."

Tonks grinned.

"When were you planning to put this into action?"

"After the funeral?" he said. "I thought it might be a nice tribute. I was planning to go to the camp later, find Isaiah so he can spread the word and get everyone who wants to leave in one place."

"Do I need to tell you to be careful?"

Remus moved around the table and swept her to him, his arms fastening around her waist. "No," he said, smiling down at her and then leaning in until they were nose to nose. "Moderate heroism only. But I am glad to have you here to _not _say it."

On the evening of Dumbledore's funeral, long after Molly had finished foisting sandwiches on members of the Order and sniffing into her sleeve, Tonks and Remus Apparated to Moody's designated point outside the werewolf camp. Tonks' knees protested at the impact on the hard ground, and compulsively she checked the tree line, waiting for Moody's security measures to materialise. The faint red mist curled around her ankles, around Remus', and Remus murmured, 'Remus Lupin, moderately heroic werewolf and Nymphadora Tonks, willing accomplice', making the mist fade and then disappear entirely.

The place was deserted, the cluster of trees and the rolling hills as absent of human habitation as they always had been, and above them stars pricked the sky. "Nice night for it," Remus said, and Tonks shifted a little nervously.

There were two pops, and Arthur and Moody appeared in the chilled air, wands drawn. "Alastor Moody, former Auror and scourge of dark wizards everywhere," Moody stated, treating the mist at his feet as if it were a real official with a quill and a form to fill in. He looked pointedly at Arthur. "If you don't say something it can verify, it'll have your feet off."

Arthur blanched, shifted his weight and cleared his throat. "And Arthur Weasley. Er – husband to Molly and father of six."

He stared down as if fully expecting his ankles to turn to bloodied stumps, and when the mist dissipated he breathed a sigh of audible relief.

"Wotcher," Tonks said, and Moody's magical eye swung, surveying the horizon behind them. "We weren't followed."

"Never hurts to check. Complacency is – "

" – a rallying call to the other side to come and kick your arse, I know."

Moody grumbled but eyed Tonks approvingly. "Plan changed, Lupin?"

"No. Everything's in place."

"How was your insider?"

"Pleased to see me."

"And you can be sure he's trustworthy? Death Eaters won't have turned him?"

"He's thirteen, Mad-Eye."

"Still – "

"Everyone clear on what they're supposed to be doing?" Remus said, interrupting Moody before he could launch into another lecture, the kind they'd been hearing on the sly all day.

"Mad-Eye and I'll go and find Greyback on the pretence of arresting him for his involvement in the Hogwarts attack," Arthur said, "then when he's occupied we'll send up sparks so you know the coast's clear."

"Looking forward to a scrap," Moody said. "We'll keep him away from the Floo, even if we have to die to do it."

"Steady on, Mad-Eye. Molly'll go ballistic when she finds out where I've been as it is."

Remus unfurled the map he had tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket and squinted at it, his nose almost on the paper. "Greyback's at his cave. All his cronies are there too – probably a meeting and they tend to drag. Tonks and I'll make for this spot here – Isaiah's been assembling the children all day and it looks like they're all waiting. The other group I mentioned, the ones who don't need our assistance as such – they'll be to the north and will identify themselves if needs be by using the word _hobgoblin_."

"And they have a plan of their own, do they?" Arthur said.

"Isaiah has been careful with the details of course, but yes. A group of older werewolves will be waiting for your distraction and making a break for it on their own. Hopefully that will draw attention even further away from us."

"Right," Tonks said. "Piece of cake, this."

"Good luck," Remus said.

He shot Moody and Arthur a grateful glance, getting a nod and a tight-lipped, understanding smile in return before they headed for the trees. With Arthur's long strides and Moody's urgent limp, they disappeared in no time between the pines and silver birches, leaving silence, thick and taut, in their wake.

"Down to me and you now, then," Tonks said, and Remus met her eye, lifting his eyebrows slowly.

"Ready?"

"Always."

Remus nodded towards the trees, and together they made their way across the grass to the edge of the forest. Arthur and Moody were going to approach the camp from the south, the way Tonks had done on all her previous visits, arriving right in front of Greyback's cave. They didn't have to worry about stealth – in fact, the more attention they could draw the better, and Tonks suspected that was one of the things Moody was most looking forward to, the opportunity to try out some of the spells he never normally got to use because they were too showy.

She and Remus were heading east to where the camp broke up a little and isolated groups tried to hide from Greyback's attention. If everything went to plan, Isaiah would be waiting there with all the children Remus had been able to reach, and they'd mobilise as quickly as they could. The bracken was thick and clawed at Tonks' ankles, and she drew in a breath of cold, musty air, telling herself that it really was going to be a piece of cake. As a plan it had all the trademarks of success – simplicity, good wizards in place, a clear idea of what they were doing – but she couldn't resist the twist of apprehension in her stomach at the thought of going back to the camp, potentially facing Greyback again. She could still taste her own disgust at what had happened to Thomas Montgomery, could still see Greyback's sneer as he loomed over Bill's torn body, and the place was as disquieting as ever.

Remus deftly picked his way through the brambles and the long, snaking web of ferns that criss-crossed the forest floor, and Tonks swore as she got her jeans caught, paused to detach it while Remus waited next to a huge, sprawling oak. "Ok?" he said, and she nodded, even though the apprehension in her stomach was expanding.

So much rested on tonight. She'd been trying not to think about it, but since Dumbledore's funeral she hadn't been able to banish the thought of how impossibly high the stakes were. If something went wrong, Remus would be crushed, and she knew that if they were discovered Greyback would punish insurrection viciously and without mercy. She, Remus, Moody and Arthur could Apparate away but most of the children and other werewolves could not, and a mistake of any kind would probably cost them their lives.

Moody's familiar voice growled in her head: _when the stakes are high, girl, you've just got to not lose. Never think of the consequences of failing until they're close enough to smell._

They pressed on through the trees, tightly-packed pines shooting up at the sky, and eventually they thinned and then petered out entirely. Remus waited for her to catch up, then leant in. "That's the place," he said, gesturing to an impromptu shelter made from pallets and torn sheets. "Do you think we'll see the sparks from here?"

"Moody's an expert."

Remus nodded, dragged the map out again, pointed his wand at it until it glowed as if lit from within, peered at the tiny text moving across it.

"What's happening? Are they all right?"

She leant in, and could make herself and Remus out on the map, two lone names in the middle of the forest, a cluster so jumbled she couldn't read them in the near distance. At least Isaiah's part had gone all right, she thought. She searched for Moody and Arthur, for Greyback, but Remus found them first.

"They're there. I think they're probably about to – oh, they've got Greyback cornered – "

He paused, concentrating fiercely, and then his question about the sparks was answered as a torrent of them flew into the sky and exploded, raining down over the tree tops.

"That's the signal. Ready?"

She nodded, and Remus tucked the map back inside his jacket and gestured to the camp.

The boundary line flickered as Tonks cast a detection spell at it, and they stepped over it and made straight for the shelter, Remus casting nervous glances at the path. It was eerily quiet, though, and Tonks wondered how many werewolves were currently heading north, making their own break for freedom.

The shelter was impossibly ramshackle, gaping holes in the wood offering a window onto the scene inside, ragged forms huddled together, scared, others pressed to the gaps, alert and wary as they approached.

Isaiah was on guard outside, standing squarely, his jeans hanging low on his hips, as ever kept up only by willpower. He looked at once older than he had before and more hopeful than Tonks ever imagined he might, peering out into the darkness, inquisitiveness held behind a mask of hardened, well-learned cynicism. He glanced at her, frowned at her hair, and then his attention was on Remus.

"Evening," Remus said, and Isaiah smiled.

"Thought you'd changed your mind."

"Of course – " Whatever he was about to say was cut off as, in the distance, the air was punctured by a bang and a shout. "And I believe that's our cue to leave."

The shelter was abruptly frantic activity. The children scrambled to their feet, and Remus darted to the doorway, helping them gather their belongings, offering words of encouragement, trying to get them all outside as quickly as possible. Tonks turned, scanning their surroundings for anyone approaching, and Isaiah was at her side in an instant, scanning alongside her, his hands balled into fists. "Is everyone ready?" she said.

"Yeah," he said. "But getting werewolves to do what you want when you want ain't exactly easy."

"Tell me about it. How many?"

"Twenty four. Counted them in myself."

"They know what to do?"

"We had a briefing an hour ago. Keep quiet, move fast, ask for help if you need it."

Tonks nodded, and by the time she looked back Remus had gathered all the occupants of the shelter, drawn more out from behind, and they stood in a rough gaggle, eyes wide and glassy inside their hollow faces. Fear picked at their foreheads as they clutched at what passed for their belongings, the odd scrap of fabric that was probably once a blanket or tattered plastic bag. They ranged from five to fifteen for the most part, a couple of older girls and a young couple clinging to each other and looking all the more scared for knowing how dangerous escaping could be, and Tonks listened for another bang, the sound of footsteps or the battle getting closer, thought she could hear someone approaching. "We better move," she said.

Remus drew out the map, gave it what was intended to look like a cursory glance, and then nodded, meeting her eye with cautious reassurance. "Everybody follow me," he said. "Tonks and Isaiah will stand guard until we've cleared the boundary line."

Remus set off for the cover of the trees at a brisk pace. A couple of the younger children stumbled in an effort to keep up, the older ones grabbing their elbows to hurry them along, then scooping them up and carrying them as best they could. Tonks watched as Remus cajoled and hurried them, his eyes passing over every face as he hushed and offered words of encouragement.

There was another bang, and Isaiah tensed at her side, but it seemed further away. Moody was always good for his word, and she trusted him to keep Greyback occupied or – she winced at the thought – die in the attempt. "Don't worry," she said. "S'just Moody showing off, more than likely. You say 'diversion' he thinks you really mean 'hey Mad-Eye, start a war'."

"Who's that?"

"A friend. Someone who's helping us help you lot. There are two of them, actually. They'll do whatever it takes."

"Why?"

"For Remus," Tonks said, and then reconsidered her answer.

It was true enough that Remus was the motivation – they both liked and respected him, and that had driven the idea forward, but there were other factors too. Moody had offered to help because he didn't really trust anyone to do as good job in a fight as he would himself, but Arthur had volunteered for more esoteric reasons. Maybe it was Bill, not revenge exactly, but a strike back, proof that in amongst it all there were still people who didn't hate for the sake of it, didn't fall into prejudice even when they perhaps had reason to.

"People like Greyback," she said, "they'll have you believe everyone's out for themselves and to be anyone you have to have power and fear. But not everyone's like that. Some people, they do the right thing just because it needs doing."

Isaiah considered her for a moment as if the idea was strange, alien, but enticing, and then nodded, his eyes abruptly back on the trees.

"You look better than you did before."

"Ta. It'll be my bridely-glow or something."

"You're getting – " Isaiah looked up, almost aghast, and then his gaze turned cold. "Does Remus know?"

"Of course. Who'd you think was stupid enough to ask me to marry them?"

"You're marrying _him_?" Isaiah said, his eyes widening. "Even though he's a werewolf?"

"Especially because he's a werewolf, actually," Tonks said quietly. "Being a werewolf is – well, I think it's being a werewolf that makes him such a wonderful man."

"Really?"

Tonks smiled at him, nodded, then looked towards the trees where two dozen werewolves were making their escape, Remus' head visible at the front of the pack.

"I think we're clear. Come on or they'll leave without us."

They trudged through the forest in almost complete silence, only Remus' words of reassurance drifting towards Tonks as she and Isaiah followed. The bracken was heavy going at the pace Remus set, snagging on ankles and biting at wrists, and every couple of metres someone had to stop to disentangle themselves. Tonks hoped Remus had brushed up on his darning spells, because when they got to the crofter's cottage, everyone's clothes were going to be even more tattered than they already were. She kept one ear pricked for sounds of encroaching footsteps, any sign that they'd been spotted, that Greyback had somehow signalled for help, but the trees were still and the air behind them undisturbed. Tonks reasoned that even if Greyback _had_ signalled for help it was unlikely to come, because Death Eaters were no more inclined to a favourable view of werewolves than the general population. They'd use them, of course, but help them? She didn't think so.

She pulled her sleeve away from a bramble, cursing the tiny rip she made, and her thoughts drifted to Moody and Arthur. She hoped they were all right. Even when they stopped the map would only tell them so much, but she reasoned that Moody had years of experience, and a bunch of non-magical werewolves – however fierce and cruel – probably wouldn't trouble him.

They pressed on through the pines, and eventually were afforded a glimpse of their destination. Set against a break in the trees was a small, grey stone cottage – or at least, what remained of it. In an attempt to stop Greyback murdering Thomas Montgomery Remus had reduced two of the walls to little more than stacks of rubble, but against one of the others the fireplace still stood, a testament to one of the Death Eater's spell-casting prowess.

"In here everyone," Remus said, and some of the children looked up at him with large, bewildered eyes as they picked through the debris, since this was barely better than where they'd come from. "The place we're taking you is a way away I'm afraid, and the method of transportation will be a little – unfamiliar to some of you. Has anyone travelled by Floo before?"

Ten or so raised their hands, amongst them the older girls, one of the couple, and a boy with straw-like hair. Tonks tried not to imagine their stories, how they'd been wrenched out of their lives and thrust into new ones dictated by Greyback's cruel whims, clinging instead to the thought that they were ten minutes or so away from starting entirely new ones.

In the distance there was a shout, indistinct and carried on the breeze, but enough to turn Remus' smile forced. "Right, it's very simple," he said quickly. His aura of calm was impressive as he knelt in front of the fireplace and Conjured a fire, then reached into his pocket and drew out a jar of Floo powder. He took a handful and held it out so they could see. "This is Floo powder and we're going to use it to travel."

Remus threw the powder into the flames, and as they blazed green a couple of people gasped. Remus waved his hand through them. "They don't hurt – not at all – you simply need to step in and state your destination – in this case Lavender Cottage – quite clearly."

"And then what?" Isaiah said.

"And then you will be there, at Lavender Cottage."

A bang in the distance echoed through the trees, and Tonks' heart leapt with a new sense of urgency. "Remus'll go first to show you how it's done," she said, and Remus glanced at where the noise had come from and frowned. "Isaiah and I'll make sure you're all safe while you Floo."

She met Remus' eye pointedly, daring him to argue, and he rolled his eyes and then tossed her the map. He stepped into the fireplace and a couple of people murmured that his clothes weren't catching light. Remus' gaze lingered on hers for a second, and then there was another bang – closer – and he nodded. "So I simply say _Lavender Cottage_ and then – "

With a whoosh he was gone, and a couple of children leant in to look up the chimney, startling when Remus' head appeared again in the flames. "And here I am at Lavender Cottage. Nothing to it. Who wants to go next?"

A couple of people eagerly volunteered, and one by one, with various degrees of nervousness, they stepped into the fireplace and disappeared.

Tonks kept one eye on them, one on the forest behind them, her wand trained on the darkness between the trees in case Greyback appeared. She hadn't quite decided what she'd do if she saw him, had a clear shot. She'd talked about it with Moody, whether or not there were some people it wasn't worth trying to capture, and while she had no doubt that if Greyback didn't exist their world would be a safer place, she still wasn't sure she had it in her to kill him. She peered at the trees, sensing some movement, hoping it was just a deer or rabbit, turned back to the fireplace, where Isaiah was nervously fingering the Floo powder but trying to pass it off as curiosity as it slipped through his fingers.

"It's fun," she said.

"Promise?"

"I wouldn't lie to you."

Isaiah nodded, then dropped the Floo powder with a rather endearingly uncertain look on his face. "Lavender Cottage?" he said, and as the flames whooshed him away, he looked immensely surprised that it had worked.

Tonks let out a breath. Remus had done it. She allowed herself a moment to grin at the thought that she was marrying someone so brave and ingenious, and then checked the map.

Moody and Arthur were to their north, moving at a pace, Greyback and the names Vallins and Godge apparently sprinting away from them. Further along the boundary line there was a dense cluster of names moving steadily, and Tonks smiled to herself as she imagined the werewolves there who were leaving the camp, and would never return.

Satisfied that no-one needed her help, Tonks tucked the map into her pocket, gave their surroundings one last look. She'd be happy if she never saw the place again. As she stepped into the flames she thought that the last time someone had used the fireplace it had been for evil, and that what they'd done had somewhat restored the balance. Dumbledore would have approved of that at least, she thought.

Tonks emerged in a wide room with a broad hearth that was now covered in soot, sooty foot prints and embers. Isaiah was staggering a little to one side, and Remus was waiting for her on the rug, his face crumpled with concern. She barely had time to adjust to her new location before he pulled her into a hug, relief evident in his quick, shallow breaths, and the urgent, grateful grasp of his fingers. "What'd I say?" she said, murmuring into his shoulder as he held her tight. "Piece of cake."

"No trouble?"

"Nope. I'm just going to let Moody know we're safe and he can call off his attack."

Tonks gave him a squeeze, stepped back, Conjured her patronus, and as it shimmered into being she saw Isaiah's eyes widen. "That looks like – "

"Yeah, it's him."

"So she's seen you all – " Isaiah looked up at Remus, raised his hands like paws and growled.

"Yes."

"And she still wants to marry you?"

"Apparently. She's a strange girl."

Remus met her eye, smiled in a way that made her insides tingle, and she ducked down, whispered in the werewolf's ear that they were fine, mission accomplished, sent it racing out of the cottage's door.

Tonks straightened up, then almost lost her footing as someone bumped into her elbow. She expected it to be one of the children who hadn't Flooed before, but instead it was a fully-gown wizard. He was tall, dressed in tartan robes, a long, grey beard dangling from his chin and small, round glasses perched askew on his nose. "Oh, beg pardon," he said, stumbling a little under the weight of a plate piled high with toast as he tried to avoid crashing into a small girl and dropping the lot.

"Tonks, Isaiah, this is Archie Screech. He'll be looking after things when I'm not around."

"Wotcher."

"I thought tea and toast might be the place to start," he said. "This is the plain – jammed to come, tea's on the way – yes, it's all in hand."

He smiled as if trying to convince himself, and the plate wobbled a little as he offered it to Isaiah. Isaiah took a piece of toast a little warily, then nodded in thanks, holding it as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Archie turned away, offering slices to the girl who'd nearly tripped him, then the boy with the straw-like hair, and they both watched Isaiah for a cue.

"What do you think?" Remus said, gesturing to the room.

The crofter's cottage was small, seemed even more so now it was packed with ragged clothed and occasionally soot-covered children, but the place was more than habitable. It was cosy. The furniture had seen better days – she recognised the sofa from Remus' windmill – but somehow the shabby furniture created a sense of warmth, and in fact, it looked a bit like a common room at Hogwarts.

"S'alright," Isaiah said. "And he can't find us here? Greyback? He can't do the Flooing thing we did and get in?"

"He has no idea where you are. We've been very careful, and the best witches and wizards have performed spells to keep him and his cronies away, even if he does find out. You're perfectly safe here."

"I checked everything myself. Twice," Tonks said.

Isaiah looked up at Remus uncertainly, and Remus leant in conspiratorially. "And don't be fooled by the pink hair," he mock-whispered. "She's extremely brilliant. If she says you're safe, you can trust her. You're safe. So eat your toast before it gets cold."

Tonks let out a soft breath of amusement as Isaiah did as he was told, pulling off the crust first and shovelling it into his mouth. The other children followed suit, and Remus grinned at her.

They were an odd pair, she thought, the mild-mannered yet moderately heroic werewolf and the pink-haired witch who'd devoted her life to fending off dark magic, and it was easy to see why Isaiah was wary. They were unlikely saviours however she looked at it, but maybe that was the point.

The Order, their lives, were chaos at the moment, everyone waiting for everyone else to tell them what to do, but even in amongst the confusion and the sadness, Remus had done _something_. Rather than being dwarfed by the idea of what they could be facing, he'd looked at one problem and just fixed it, in his own quiet way, finding help from people who were just as unlikely, a paranoid warrior, a wizard with a penchant for toast and tartan, a stoic father, and a boy in desperate need of a belt. The thought made hope stir in Tonks' veins. Darkness could encroach all it liked, but while there were still people with faith in each other, people prepared to _try_, it would never truly triumph, would it?

"Right then," Archie said. "Who wants some more toast? And can I have a show of hands for hot chocolate rather than tea?"

Tonks watched him bustle about the room handing out food and drink, asking everyone's name, introducing himself and explaining that everyone would stay here tonight in sleeping bags, and then in the morning they'd sort out something more permanent. She'd thought that maybe this would be the hard part, that the werewolves would have lost their ability to trust, be too wary, maybe, to settle, but inch by inch she could see them warming to Archie, and she knew Remus had sown the seeds for that.

She looked at him, watched his smile grow as the children made themselves at home, accepted hot chocolate in chipped mugs and chewed on toast as if they'd never had a better dinner. Pride burned beneath her skin, that even though Remus had thought his efforts fruitless and shallow, he'd done this. He'd proved that he could be trusted, that not everyone was like Greyback. He'd shown them there was another way, a quieter way that was no less fraught with occasional hardships, but that they didn't need to be defined by what they were, could make a life if they chose to. Maybe he'd finally learned that too, that him being a werewolf didn't mean he couldn't have the life, and the person, he wanted.

Tonks looked around the room and groups were already forming, Isaiah shifting on the floor next to a pretty girl with long, dark hair, telling her that here they'd be able to learn about things, and that they'd be safe, others clustering together and imagining Greyback's reaction, laughing about the speeches he'd make to his empty cave next week. She watched them all, thinking that what Remus had really done was give them the gift that had meant the most to him: the chance to make friends, the chance to have those friends change their lives for the better.

"I think they're going to be Ok," she said, and Remus reached for her hand.

"I hope so."

"Where did you find Archie?"

"He lives in the forest. I was checking out alternative buildings and practically Apparated on top of him. His sister was killed by a werewolf fifty years ago, and when I told him what I was planning he volunteered."

"Really?"

"Hmm. I suppose some people respond with fear, and some people – like Archie and Arthur and Sirius and James – respond with sympathy and kindness."

Tonks murmured her agreement, and beyond the window she saw Arthur and Moody appear in the trees. They strode towards the cottage, Arthur and his long, amiable gait, Moody limping along beside, trying to keep up. Arthur rapped on the door, then opened it when Remus gestured for him to, sticking his head around the frame.

"Wot-ho."

"Come in, come in," Archie said. "Archie Screech. Would you like some toast?"

"Delighted to meet you. Arthur Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody," Arthur said. "And yes, if there's any going spare. Worked up quite an appetite."

Archie bustled towards the kitchen, and Moody eyed the doorway with suspicion and then decided it was up to standard and stepped into the lounge. "All right?" Tonks said.

"All went to plan," Arthur said, resting on the mantelpiece. "Think we've given Greyback quite a mess to sort out. Something of a rebellion even, maybe, amongst those who remain."

"Really?" Remus said, leaning forwards.

"Chased him through most of the camp so everyone's seen what a great bloody coward he is at heart," Moody growled. "Think he thought they'd all leap up to help."

"Indeed. He did seem surprised when his rank and file deserted him. Group heading north appeared to have made it too."

"We had to lay down a bit of cover – "

"I still think setting fire to his shoes was unnecessary – "

"No less than the bugger deserved. Had half a mind to rip off his – "

"There are children present," Tonks said, and Moody rolled his good eye but kept quiet.

"Well – thank you," Remus said. "Thank you both."

Moody nodded and Arthur shrugged, as if he hadn't just risked his life and Molly's wrath. He accepted a plate of toast from Archie, then asked him if he knew the origins of tartan and if the pattern was anything to do with Muggle camouflage.

They spent most of the night at the cottage, but soon enough sleeping bags needed Conjuring and the children started to drift off into dreams, the older escapees talking to Archie about plans over more hot chocolate laced with Firewhiskey in the kitchen.

Remus suggested they all go home, and Tonks agreed, bidding everyone a goodnight. On their way out, she caught Remus winking at Isaiah as he looked up from a thick, turquoise sleeping bag, and as they closed the door quietly behind them, her lingering impression was of the first genuine smile she'd ever seen pulling on the corners of Isaiah's mouth.

They Apparated to the grounds of the windmill, the familiar hill in the distance, the faint, twinkling lights of the Poplars just visible. She'd been officially living here for less than a week, but it already felt like home to Tonks. They had so many memories dotted around the place, their first official date, the picnic in February, certainty in polka dots, and she wondered what the new ones they'd make would look like.

"Tired?" Remus said.

"Not really."

"In that case...."

Remus halted on the grass, shifting his fingers between hers until they fitted perfectly. He flicked his wand at the door, opening it, switching on the lights, and from within the WWN stirred into life, some soft ballad with a lilting, hopeful melody.

"Would you like to dance?"

His expression was quietly cheeky, and he looked more alive and content than she thought she'd ever seen him before.

"You know when we did that at Grimmauld it didn't go so well."

"It went perfectly."

Remus lifted her hand and placed it on his shoulder, taking the other one in his and pulling her close. Tonks laughed as she stumbled on the grass and into him, but he steadied her and they managed to take a step almost in time with the music, and then another.

"See?" Remus said. "Perfect."

They moved in a wide slow circle along with the track, and Tonks looked up at him, taking in every detail of his face in the glow from the windmill's lights, filtered through her rainbow curtains. A new wonderful memory already, she thought.

"You look happy."

"I spent the evening doing something moderately heroic, the stars are out, there's a fabulous record playing and a beautiful girl who I love beyond the word agreed to marry me. What else does a man need to make him happy?"

"Easy as that?"

"Easy as that," he murmured.

They both knew it hadn't been easy at all, she thought, but that was how they knew what they had was worth having, and that it was strong, and resilient, and there was nothing they wouldn't be able to face.

Remus tucked her hair behind her ear, then drew her into a kiss, his lips soft and languid as they moved over hers, making her feel like the stars had fallen and ignited her insides. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and when Remus pulled away he was smiling, but softly.

"Isaiah told me what you said, that you love me especially because I'm a werewolf."

"Big mouth."

"Did you mean it?"

"Of course I – "

"I thought you might have said it to make him feel better."

"If it made him feel better I'm glad but – really it's very simple, Remus. Being a werewolf is what makes you you. And I love you, for you, for all of that, so – "

Remus' face lit up with a grin, and he span them round, faster and faster until the trees and the windmill were nothing but a blur. She clung to him, laughing as she tried to keep up, and when they halted she was dizzy and breathless, collapsing against him. Remus' breath tickled at her ear, and after a second he rested his chin against her temple.

"Let's get married."

"Didn't we do this already? You had a ring and hyacinths – it was very nicely done."

"No, I mean tomorrow. Let's get married tomorrow."

"Are you serious?"

"Why not? If we can organise a mass werewolf breakout in less than a week a wedding in twelve hours should be no trouble."

"My mum'll do her nut. She hasn't picked a hat yet."

"Mine too. They can compare irritation over dinner."

Tonks looked up at him, trying to ascertain if he was really serious, and he raised his eyebrows at her, his eyes keen and hopeful. Irresistibly so. She grinned.

"Ok, then. Tomorrow."

Tonks nestled on Remus' chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart as it accompanied the endless, swirling melody tripping out of the front door. She tightened her grip, remembering the first time she'd danced with him, a ball of cautious excitement while Sirius snored in his party food. It had been a different world, almost, one that sadly no longer existed, but they were still here, still dancing, a constant.

She thought about tomorrow, and all the tomorrows they were going to have, how eagerly she'd greet them because Remus would be in each and every one. She couldn't picture what the days themselves would look like, what they'd contain or how they'd feel, whether the war would be won or lost, their days filled with sorrow or happiness beyond even this. But they'd be together, and whatever happened, she could think of no greater privilege than to walk through life with Remus.

And so, in the light from a shabby windmill with multi-coloured curtains at the window, stars above them and their arms around each other, Remus and Tonks danced into the night, and waited for their tomorrows to start.

* * *

_A/N: So that is it. The final chapter. My heartfelt, endless thanks to you for reading, especially those of you who have (unbelievably) been with me since the beginning. Writing this and sharing it with you has honestly been one of the most wonderful experiences of my life – I've found such kindness, inspiration, and even friendship here over the last four years that saying goodbye is going to be a real wrench. So instead I'll say everyone gets a happy ending with a werewolf of their own choosing, and a large, stiff drink on me. _

_Farewell Werewolf party on my LJ, to which you are all cordially invited (link in my profile) xxx. _


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